This was my second and last time using the abebooks service.

On the 4th of March I bought (and payed) a book from abebooks from the seller WORLDOFBOOKS.COM on a Friday at 20:00H.

However after 40 minutes I find out that I order an old edition, and I Tried to cancel my order. Well here is where this service shows everything, they clearly say this:

Book Details
Author: Richard G. Lipsey Ask a Question
Title: Principles of Economics
Description: This book is in stock and will ship within 24 hours from our warehouse in the UK.

As you can see the shipping will only occurs after 24 hours, however this gentlemen changed the status of my order to shipped after 40 minutes on a FRIDAY! The reason for this status is the fact that abebooks have in their policy that when a seller ships an item the order can not be canceled! At the same moment I tried to contact bought the seller and the Abebooks. I only got a response on Monday (offcourse) saying that the item were shipped and there wasn't anything to do.

Well then, in my ingenuity I waited for the book that took 3 weeks TO arrive! When I received the book on 24 of March I started the refund process and I spent 13 € sending the book (sent in April 13th) in a registered mail (the book cost me 25 €) for tracking the package.

I then emailed abebooks requesting for the seller to pay my shipping cost since it was unfair that I have to pay something that I didn't got a chance to cancel in 40 minutes after my order!

The reply was that it was unfair for the seller! For abebooks the sellers are more important that customers.

Unfortunately the UK mailling service is very bad and only now (07th May) I received the confirmation that the seller got the book on April 17th. Since I didn't know if they got the book or not I didn't requested my money till now.

But I provided the tracking number for the seller and abebooks.
However, they know that I didn't know if the book was delivery so they didn't said anything and not even abebooks.

I HAD TO SEND AN EMAIL AGAING TO REQUEST MY MONEY BACK TODAY AFTER MORE THAN 15 days after they received my book!

So my advice is use other sites like amazon (I never had refund problems with them!) or even Ebay. If you must use abebooks be SURE when buying because when you click to buy you have no CHANCE TO cancel your order.