The other day while placing an order through O'Reilly, I inadvertently submitted two orders. When I caught the mistake, O'Reilly had already shipped two identical orders to me. They gave me a full refund, however, instead of making me ship the books back to them the told me to just go ahead and donate them to a school or library. Donating books is way more fun than a trip to USPS.
A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
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Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#2Link to the email: http://f.cl.ly/items/1k0m0Z231Q3I2i3u1n0I/Screen%20shot%2020...
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#3It's nice style :)
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#4And this is why O'Reilly is leaps & bounds ahead of everyone else in technical & scientific publishing -- particularly regarding the respect it has gained from people in said fields!
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#5I may be too cynical, but I bet that the authors of those books didn't get paid. They were probably marked as "destroyed" in O'Reilly's accounting system.
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#6I may be too cynical, but I bet that the authors of those books didn't get paid. They were probably marked as "destroyed" in O'Reilly's accounting system.
As for what I heard, writing books (especially on the IT-area) are not so profitable.
So my guess is that the authors are okey with donation for a good cause.
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#7I may be too cynical, but I bet that the authors of those books didn't get paid. They were probably marked as "destroyed" in O'Reilly's accounting system.
Even if that was the case, I'll bet both of the authors would have been happy to see their books go into a library. Neither of them are currently available in Carnegie Library (our largest in Pittsburgh).
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#8I had a similar experience with Amazon, they refunded me the extra bluray remote for the PS3 and told me to donate it and even said that maybe my local library would want it (???).
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#9I've had the same experience with Amazon, when orders have gone wrong which I think is even more impressive given they're much larger and public. It shows is possible not to put short-term profits first -- some people excuse "evil" acts by companies as being required by shareholders.
Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them
#10As much as I share your admiration for O'Reilly, this is seems to be common practice. It's just more expensive to get the items back in inventory again than what they are actually worth.
See this thread: "Microsoft suggests customer donate extra X-Box they sent him." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3434404