Tower Books Beware of Tower Books - Dishonest and Misleading book reseller / bookjacking site. Do NOT buy from this site. Numerous reports of customers being ripped off. Extreme Caution is Advised! Canada Internet
Tower Books Website Scam, Customer Rip Offs.
Buyers beware!
Tower Books is a misleading and dishonest book reseller/bookjacking website with a proven history of terrible customer service, knowingly listing unavailable books (yet taking payment upfront) and many unhappy customers. The proof below shows that this website should be considered a SCAM
Do NOT order from Tower Books. There is a high risk of being ripped off.
Tower Books is apparently the successor to Tower Records which as per Wikipedia:-
Tower Records was a retail music chain based in Sacramento, California. It currently exists as an international franchise and anonline music store.[1] From 1960 until 2006, Tower operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and liquidation.
Tower Books operate this website tower.com/ and have no verifiable business address and unresponsive customer services.
Later I found a series of very bad reviews here, resellerratings.com/store/www_tower
It should be noted they have 27 1 star reviews out of 27! and score 1 out of 10!
Here are some examples copy pasted
"I waited about two months for the order. When I finally contacted their email support, they got back to me saying that ALL the items were out of stock and would not be in stock anymore. 2 months to tell me that? Seriously? Do you think you could have told me when you knew they were out of stock?
I have suspicion that this place is a scam."
"I ordered a childrens' book as a Christmas gift. Tower.com said they had it in stock. After I ordered it with "standard" shipping (and paid), my receipt (web page) said that it would ship in 8 to 15 days. Too long! I used their "contact us" form to ask if I could change to a faster shipping option. I received no response, so I followed their order cancellation procedure. By December 22nd, my order still showed (on the website) as pending. I tried canceling it again, and it said the order was already canceled. I again used "contact us" to request a cancellation and refund of my payment. Again, I got no response. I finally received the book in mid-January, about 30 days after I originally ordered."
"Worst shopping experience ever! Please avoid them. Ordered some DVDs, they sent out the wrong items and am still fighting for my refund"
"Wow this place is terrible, ordered 3 books, received 2 of them - have contacted them multiple times to find out where the other book is.
Going through paypal to try and get money back for third book. Stay away from these guys"
"Items charged and sent 2 weeks after cancellation of order. Don't expect e-mail confirmation of orders or cancellations, don't expect cancellations to be honored."
"I should have read these reviews before I ordered from this seller. I ordered three items, two CDs and one DVD. I received the CDs but not the DVD. I have emailed numerous times to find out the status of the DVD and they have not replied. Their customer service is terrible. It has now been about six weeks since I made the order and I have had to put in a dispute with PayPal to get my money back."
"Pre ordered the Beatles stereo box set on aug 31.
Box set to be released sept9....they charges my card immediately, then on the 18th of Sept they canceled my order saying there was an error on the webpage............have tried to contact them,no response.......they have not credited my card yet........contacted my card co and am disputing the charge,..............never order fdrom tower.com"
"The WORST online buying experience I've ever had! When you select priority shipping, doesn't that signal that you might want to receive your goods as, oh say, a priority?! They took over 24 hours to ship my product (site said it would ship within 12 hours) and the package arrived after 11 days (rather than the 2-4 I paid for).
Did they apologize and offer to reimburse me for the difference between priority and standard shipping? No, they pointed to the fine print that we've all been trained to ignore and said the problem lies with USPS.
I refused to accept their package, so hopefully my credit card company will get my full payment back.
Thanks Overtock.com for making my purchase come through in the end!
"
"I will never buy from them again. I ordered over 2 weeks ago and item has not even shipped even though it was listed as "in stock". One item shipped 10 days ago and has still not made it to me."
Service has gone way down. It took me days to reach customer service. You do not answer emails. You have no one answering the phones. You do not provide a physical mail address.
You held my shipment to consolidate items. That is ok. What is not ok is that in the interim period, two of the items I ordered became unavailable from Tower – yet you were still holding my order to ship items that would never, ever ship. You could have held it for months. Again, to be clear, you held my shipment for items that you no longer sell. Its only because I checked that any action was taken? When I finally reached someone after being on hold for 1.5 hours they said they wanted another 20 days to ship the balance I have bought a lot music from tower in the past two years and that counted for nothing. You offered me nothing and give me lousy service. I am done with you. I can’t imagine business is so good that you can alienate good returning customers, but apparently my money and my loyalty count for nothing at Tower. I know there are other firms in music distribution and sales that would be happy to take my money and give me good service. I am done with you
Today after an hour and a half wait, I finally got a CSR. Her name was Lea. She was supposed to cancel the whole order and issue a refund as I am not waiting another month. She only cancelled one item; the one that you no longer stock. Please ensure you cancel the whole order and issue the refund. Do not ship. You have been instructed to cancel. You still have title per your terms of sale. Any shipment will be refused. All shipping will be at your cost. I have already lodged a complaint with my credit card company. You will be charged back if you do not issue the credit.
"
"Tower.com is a SCAM. Save yourself the hassle and time and don't buy from them. Unless you don't care IF you get your product. They charge you upon purchase not shipment then take weeks to even ship your product. Mine were listed as "in stock" but took 2 weeks to leave the warehouse. Then customer service won't help you per company policy. If you like the hassle, they're the company for you."
"I got a separate confirmation message for each item that it has been shipped,but it does not mean that the items are shipped. Rather, the entire shipment is held until all items are confirmed and then everything is shipped together. Misleading! Also, I received one CD that had the correct inserts and label, but when I played it, the CD had an entirely different band on it. I couldn't believe it. I don't think Tower.com buys from reputable places if this can happen. It is just today, 3 months later, that I was able to get a complete refund on the fake CD I returned per their instructions & RMA back in December. This was the absolute worst online purchase I've ever had and I've purchased online thousands of times, literally.
"
"I ordered a CD box set that says it is in stock and ships in 12 hours, well instead of them doing that they waited 3 days to ship and lowered the price while I waited. I contacted their customer service and asked if I could get the difference since they hadn't shipped it, said they said nope you should have waited to buy it. I ordered the box set for a birthday party that was on Feb. 1, and because of their delay in shipping it got here Feb. 2. This is the worst experience I've had buying something online will never go to tower.com again."
"Packing quality: very poor
Shipping confirmations, e-mail communication: fair to poor, misleading.
Beware of Tower Books. Buyers beware!!