Here is my full experience with Book Depository. I'd never use them again. I made an order on 5th July 2020 for 8 books, total cost over HKD 2800. 23rd July received an email that one book was on its way: slower than their projected COVID delay delivery times but not too bad. Book arrived about one week later. 20th August I wrote after receiving confirmation that 5 more books were despatched (at this point they still hadn’t arrived) but that one book Imagined Interiors was still ‘in processing’. One other book was received in early August. Shanaaz Prins, Customer Advisor, replied that they were having trouble finding Imagined Interiors and did I still want it? I said yes. Shanaaz also asked what the other 5 books I was waiting on were! I would have thought BD could figure that out without my help but told them anyway and asked if they could tell me when I could expect delivery. 24th August I heard from Sinqobele, another Customer Advisor, assuring me they were here to help me. Their helpful suggestion was to check at my local post office and to confirm my address (to which they had already delivered two books). Apparently, BD haven’t heard of tracking numbers. 25th August, Layla Kahn, a resolution specialist, wrote to me to advise that she has reached out to the vender team for more information. That was very comforting. Later the same day Layla wrote again to tell me the matter was still ‘being seen to’. Extra comforting. 31st August, I wrote again to update that 3 more books had arrived on August 29th (55 days after original order). Layla wrote back to say how pleased she was that I had received three more books. She was still waiting on the vendor team. 5th September, after not hearing anything more from all the staff at BD, but having received one more book, I wrote: Seriously, the after-order service from Book Depository is awful. I've received 6 out of 8 books I ordered on 6th July!!! That's 2 months despite your COVID delivery times showing 5-9 days. That's misleading at best or possibly deliberate mis-selling. One of my books has apparently been dispatched but has not yet arrived. Your team advice to me has been to check my address (even though you have already delivered other books from the same order!) or check with the Post Office. Both pieces of advice are of zero value to help me solve the non-delivery issue. I would like to ask you what are you actually doing to find out what has happened with my order? One book (Imagined Interiors) is still being processed apparently. Twice, after I followed up with you, I was told that this issue has been reported to the vendor team. I've received no further information from you or the vendor support team regarding this follow up. How can that possibly happen!! Is any follow up actually taking place? I note that you are still advertising the book for sale on your site albeit now at a higher price. Is this a deliberate policy to offer a book that you are clearly struggling to supply. Are you not fulfilling my order so you can get a better price from some-one else? Please respond with actual concrete information on what you are planning to do to fix these two outstanding non-delivery issues. Sincerely, but with mounting frustration and annoyance 6th September Layla wrote back to say she had contacted the Team for a reply. She empathised with my frustration. 10th September, having not heard from Layla or anyone else at BD I wrote again: Any update on this? Do you actually have a vendor team? That's 3 times now you've referred my issue to them and I haven't heard anything. I still don't know what your team is planning to do to supply the book that I paid for more than two months ago. You are still advertising it on your site, you've told me three times the vendor team will get back to me: I'm still waiting to hear from them or you on the status and, most importantly, I'm still waiting for my book, Imagined Interiors. Please follow up and respond with some useful information on progress of delivery. 21st September with no communication since 10th September I received this ‘bombshell’ regarding Imagined Interiors We're sorry to let you know we are unable to fulfill your order of the below items, and have issued a refund. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. We've refunded this amount back to the card you used to pay for this order. Your refund will appear on your card in 2 - 3 working days. Same day I wrote back, noting that the book was still offered for sale on the website (it has now been marked unavailable): You just gave me a refund on a book that I have not cancelled. I have been asking for over three months for you to deliver this book to me and despite numerous emails with your customer service team and promises that your vendor management team would be in touch I heard nothing from anyone until I received your latest mail. This is completely unacceptable, particularly given that you continue to advertise the book for sale to buyers in Hong Kong like me, albeit now at an increased price. This may explain your original reluctance and delay in supply! I insist you honour the contract and deliver the book to me immediately at the agreed price. Please do not refund the money. I WANT MY BOOK!!!! 22nd September I heard from Tina, a Customer Advisor. She offered to supply the book which was now available from an alternative supplier (hence the 50% price increase). Since they’d already processed my refund could I please pay the new price and then they would subsequently refund the difference. 24th September, rather than plunge straight in, I decided to ask Tina some questions: Thank you for your explanation. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain. I have become increasingly frustrated by your colleagues over the past 3 months who, when they did reply to me, gave me no information of any usefulness to enable me to determine the progress of my delayed or missing orders. I am very interested in re-ordering 'Imagined Interiors' from your alternate supplier but, before I do, I would like to understand your ability to meet your stated delivery times. On your website your COVID delivery times to Hong Kong are shown as 5-9 days. In my previous order of 8 books none arrived within that time period and 5 took almost 60 days. Note I received no help from your team whatsoever in tracking the whereabouts of my order beyond asking me to check at the post office!. If I re-order this book will you be able to meet your stated delivery time? This is important to me because I begin my masters study program on October 3rd and will require this last book close to that date. Additionally, please understand that your company (a wholly owned subsidiary of one of the world's largest and most profitable companies) have held over HKD 600 of my money since early July and have yet to refund this amount. You are now asking me to pay an additional HKD 900 plus for the new book, with (in my view) an unknown delivery time and then, at an unknown time after that you will refund me the excess HKD 300. Does this seem like good customer service to you? Do you feel it is likely to make you use and recommend your company to others? Please respond to my comments above so I can decide if I will continue with my order. Tina, replied straight away but was unable to commit to a delivery beyond what was stated on the website: 5-9 days delay due to COVID. Later, Tina politely chased me to see if I wanted to continue with the revised order. 1st October, after struggling for a week, I wrote to TINA and confirmed I had placed a new order. Tina wrote back and confirmed BD had processed the difference in price from the new order and the original price. I was beginning to feel comfortable. 16th October and my order is ‘still processing’. I wrote to Tina. 17th October I heard back from Soraya, Customer Advisor: I'm terribly sorry; it appears that the item Imagined Interiors was made unavailable from our suppliers. We tried every resource available to us in order to obtain this title for you however we were, on this occasion, unsuccessful. I can confirm that a full refund has been processed for this order on 21st September. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by this. I wrote back to Soraya immediately: You are totally wrong. My original order was cancelled unilaterally by your company on 25th September. When I complained, I was told to re-order and that you would supply the book through a different supplier (the one you are still advertising on your website I assume). I paid the full increased price on October 1st and was given partial refund to compensate for the difference in the original price and your new price. It is this second order that I am now chasing you for: it is now 16 days from the date I placed the revised order (more than 100 days from my original order) and your website still shows my book as 'processing'. When will you finish processing and send the book to me? When can I expect delivery? This drew an immediate response from Soraya: I am very sorry for the error. I checked the incorrect order. I have looked into this for you and do see that we are currently waiting for your order order to arrive from our supplier. This is expected to arrive by 20th October. As soon as we do receive it, it will immediately be dispatched to you. Please accept our sincere apologies for the time it is taking to receive this book. 3rd November I wrote again, having heard nothing Still waiting and no update from you after you assured me that you would be despatching around 20th October. Will I ever get my book? 4th November I heard from Ernie Finch, Customer Advisor Ernie here from Book Depository. Hope this e-mail finds you well. I'm terribly sorry; it appears that the item was made unavailable from our suppliers. We tried every resource available to us in order to obtain this title for you however we were, on this occasion, unsuccessful. I can confirm that a full refund has been processed for this order; on the 21st September 2020 for the amount of 642.31 HKD under reference number 5F687759884AE4184334CDXXXXXXXXX. I gave up on BD and after discussing with friends in UK, I discovered PS books. They didn’t deliver to Hong Kong but with help I was able to order to a UK address and then DHL to Hong Kong all for a lower price by 20% than BD’s best offer. I waited for the annoyance to subside. It didn’t. On January 3rd I wrote to Ernie: Hi Ernie and all the other book depository customer service people who failed to help fulfil my order. I wanted to let you know that I obtained the book very easily from a different source almost immediately after you failed after 6 months of not trying hard enough. Taking my money (twice) and making a promise which you couldn't be bothered to go even an extra inch to fulfil will stay with me when I talk to my many friends and social media contacts over the next year and beyond. Whilst you were not helping, you still continued to advertise the book as available, albeit at an increased price, until, after I chased you for what seems like at least 10 times and is probably more, you unilaterally gave up even a minimal effort to complete my order and refunded my money. If you had wanted to complete this contract you could have easily gone on the PS Books website and bought the book for £22.00 for delivery in the UK then shipped it to me in Hong Kong for another £28.00 ... and made a tidy profit of £10 given that you were going to sell it to me for over £60! Why I had to fund your company for 6 months whilst you were not bothered I still don't understand. You are, after all, a 100% subsidiary of Amazon: Surely you didn't need the money. Anyway, I hope that you've been able to enjoy reading this note as much as I've enjoyed the cathartic experience of writing it. I suggest you might want to forward a copy to your supervisor so they don't get too surprised when it starts appearing on various social media channels. Happy New Year Marisa, a Customer Advisor, wrote back to me Thank you for your email. We have passed this to the appropriate team, and we will get back to you very shortly. Thank you for your patience. Jody, a Resolutions Specialist replied: This is Jody from Book Depository Resolutions Team. I hope you're well? Reading through the below case - I firstly want to apologize - this matter should have been escalated to our warehouse team for an informed response instead of keeping you waiting and only giving you the option to cancel. Your patience with us while we were trying to find an alternative supplier is much appreciated. I'm very sorry that we weren't able to meet your expectations this time around. I hope that you will allow us another opportunity to serve you in the future. For the inconvenience caused, we would like to offer you 15% off your next order. Once you've placed another order, please contact us and we'll be glad to apply the discount in the form of a refund. I know this does not make up for time lost but I hope you receive it as a token of goodwill for this situation - Should you require any additional assistance, please feel free to contact us at any time - we're always happy to help. Take care. I’ve just written back to Jody… This will be my last communication with Book Depository. My advice to you is do not deal with this company. Dear Jody, There is so much wrong with your inadequate response, I almost don't know where to start, but let me try. 1) Please do not refer to my negative customer experience as a 'case'. I was a potential customer who was expecting a reasonable level of service. Actually, even marginally above 'just adequate' would have probably been enough. Appallingly bad wasn't even close to acceptable. Your view, which I assume represents your company position, that I am a case to be handled rather than a customer to be cared for sums up your company perfectly. 2) What you gave me was not an 'option to cancel' : there was no option. Your company refunded my money unilaterally after giving up on trying to fulfill the contract into which we had entered. This was after waiting more than 2 months for you to tell me you couldn't get the book I had in good faith ordered from you, along with 7 other books (which were also mostly delayed more than 60 days) whilst continuing to offer the book on your website to other unsuspecting 'cases'. Your company did not withdraw the book from your website until after you gave up on me, thereby giving other customers the opportunity to fall into the same trap I did: this is unconscionably bad corporate behaviour and woeful customer service. 3) Your offer of a 15% discount off my next purchase is, given the awful experience I have had with your company and the information I provided you in my email laughably derisory on all levels. I explained to you I could have received the book much quicker (within a total of 10 days) and much cheaper (by 10 pounds approximately which equates to 20% less) if I had ordered it from PS books. I know this for a fact because that is what I had to eventually do! On the same day I received your email I also got a regular customer junkmail solicitation from your company offering me 10% off my next purchase. So, your 15% discount is in reality only 5% more than you offer your regular 'cases' to induce them to purchase from you again. Honestly do you really think that this offer is suitable recompense for the total inadequacy of your service to date? 4) You mention the matter should have been escalated to 'the warehouse team for an informed response'. This suggests that a) the responses I have received to date are ill informed and b) you have a procedural problem. Other than a hook on which to hang your apology I see nothing here to suggest to me that your company will do a better job next time. Did you find out what went wrong? Did you change your procedures? Can the same problem happen again to another unsuspecting case? In summary, thank you for at least trying to respond, albeit that nothing you have said gives me any reason to ever do business with your company again or to say anything good about your company to my friends and associates. Please remove me from your mailing list.