Worldbooks > Reviews (45)

okay....so you see a leaflet in a magazine. It looks good, full of books. Your into your reading and you see that you can have 6 books for a penny each. You think to yourself why not, i love reading this could be a good chance to stock up the old bookshelf. You read the small print...only commitment is to buy 4 books in one year.... FANTASTIC!!! You send of the completed leaflet, filled with your choices, quite happy that this could be a great thing. One year down the line you will end up thinking to yourself alot more than simply "that was a pain in the bum" (i'm trying to remain very calm!!!!) So now i'm going to tell you why you should be wary of this club, after all i can't just rant and rave and not have anything to back up my fustrations (exception being when i'm drunk!!!) So what is so wrong?

1. Once you have bought your 6 books for a penny each, you'll find that you'll recieve magazines each month for you to choose one of your commitment books from. The books in these magazines are overpriced compared to the high street, and the ones on offer, do not count as a commitment. I expect this is how they try and claw their money back from the original offer! The books in the magazines are also quite out of date with only a few new releases and the variety to choose from is not the best.

2. you constantly receive letters with "editors choices" with your magazine, which you have to send back to them either rejecting or accepting (you can also do this on their website) They are usually rubbish books. It's just another annoyance that you don't really want ot be dealing with. If you do forget to let them know, then you will be sent the books regardless, which means more hassle returning them.

3. Delivery of books can take forever. I waited 3 weeks for one book. When they finally decided to deliver i was on holiday. The book was returned to them because i couldn't accept delivery. It took ages to clarify things with them, and i finally did get the book, 8 weeks after originally ordering.

4. I received a letter towards the end of my year, saying that i owed them £96!! I was gob smacked. Apparently it was because i hadn't fulfilled my commitment, so i was being charged for the books i had for a penny each. This was total nonsense as i had ordered 6 books from them, the commitment being 4. This lead to my next big nark........

5. CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!! or lack of it....after recieving this letter i decided to ring world books and sort out this matter. Well....i don't think they know the meaning of customer service. To start of with i was on hold 40 minutes. I gave up and thought i'd try later. Second time it was only 30 mins till i got through to someone (i say only with gritted teeth) It then took me at least half an hour to explain what was wrong, as the person on the other end of the phone could hardly speak any english!!! Not her fault i know, but they should really employ people who can understand, therefore help. According to them i had only bought 3 commitment books!!!

I went mad. Again after a lengthy converstaion, i was told that the 3 other books i had bought were not classed as commitments. This was a load of crap, to be blunt. When ordering the books i had double, treble checked that they were in fact commitment books. She wouldn't budge. So then i was told that if i ordered yet another book at full club price there and then, that the £96 charge would be removed from my account. Talk about taking the mick....But apparently there was no other choice, and i suppose it £20 is better than nearly £100!!

I am still waiting for my account to be cleared, but have not recieved any further "warning" letters. This club has been nothing but a pain, and i would warn anybody thinking of taking up the very inviting offer to think twice. Yes it's good to start off with, but thats about it. I know from speaking to friends that they have also had the same problem of the "warning" letters, demanding a sum because they hadn't met their commitments.

JUST BE WARY!!! not all book clubs behave like this, it's just a shame world books does!