Book Buybacks Suck!
Amanda Hoffer | Staff
Writer
The end of the semester has arrived. And so has the time of the semester
when the bookstore extends it's arm, lifts it's middle finger, and says, "F#@$
you student!" That's right! It's book buy back time! That time of year when I
can taste my vomit on the way up. When I realize I've been screwed out of
money. There is just something wrong about getting six dollars back for a
sixty-dollar book. I can't seem to figure out how they still manage to get
away with it.
At the beginning of the semester I pour hundreds of dollars into the bookstore
with that naïve belief that I'll get a good amount back at the end of the
semester. But as always I'm absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong!!! I take my
books in with a smile on my face and leave with bile in my throat. It's
always something. "That's the old edition. A new one is coming out next
semester so we aren't taking that one back." Alright how about this
book? "We can take this one back, but you can only get two dollars for it."
Why? "It's not being used next semester and that's all it sells for
wholesale. Do you still want to sell it back or do you want to keep it?"
Hell yeah I want to sell it or I wouldn't have brought it with me. Next. "We
aren't taking this one back." Why not? It's being used next semester. "We're
overstocked and can't take it back." Grrrr. Typical bookstore talk. And
here comes the one that always gets me. It goes a little something like this:
"We can't take this one back."
Why not? My professor said he's using it next semester. He always
uses that book.
"Maybe so but he hasn't put in his text request yet so we don't know
if he's still using it so we
can't buy it back."
I hate that one. Then after they have gone through your books and told you
they can't take half of them back for various reasons they have the nerve to
say this one line. "If you like you can donate those books we can't take
back." Uh, no thanks. I'd rather have some proof that I once had money.
I'll keep my eighty-dollar chemistry book and laugh at it in forty years when
all the theories have been debunked. If not that then I can always use it has
a handy doorstop.
There is a saying that I've grown fond of during my time here. "No college
student is a virgin; the bookstore screws them all." Have fun!
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