Dear bookstores, don’t be evil

Thinking of a word to describe Oxford textbook stores is difficult.

Abusive seems appropriate, but that doesn’t really convey how much they take advantage of students. Exploitative could work, but that still doesn’t cover how shady the “Big Three” bookstores are towards their customers.

Too many things come to mind, but I’m sure we can all come up with our own adjectives to define the amazing experiences we have had getting ripped off, cheated and treated like second-class citizens.

Whenever I buy or sell a book, I feel dirty and used. Bookstore employees try to act like your friend, but it’s pretty obvious they are not your buddies and are only willing to be friendly if you agree to let them take advantage of you.

A perfect example is when I tried to sell back my business communication textbook that I bought for $60. They couldn’t sell me a used book because of some “access code” I needed which may have expired in the old books.
I was naive enough to believe that one.

The professor never mentioned the access code once, nor do I even know what it was for. When I tried to sell back my textbook, it was in perfect condition but considered damaged goods because of the access code lie. The craziest part about it was the attitude I received — as if I have some sort of problem because I get upset about getting ripped off.

Looking back on it, it’s obvious they make more money from new textbooks than from used ones.

The bookstores are taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to gouge the price and discriminate against helpless college students.

People should start calling it “textbook inequality.”

In all honesty, I would probably feel better about myself if I worked for the tobacco industry than if I worked for a college bookstore. At least tobacco customers choose to be exploited. Where is Dickie Scruggs when you need him?

What bothers me is that 12 sections of 32 people, a total of 384 students, take this class every semester. If they can’t sell back used books and are forced to buy new ones, you could assume that half the price of the book goes down the drain. For a $60 book, that’s nearly $12,000 the local bookstores basically steals — for one class, for one semester.

You could even argue that the bookstores are bad for Oxford’s economy.

After all, there’s nothing worse for an economy than wasted money.

I love how the Big Three bookstores actually believe they are in a position to act so arrogantly. The bottom line is that campus bookstores will be out of business in the future. Following the footsteps of Borders bookstores’ bankruptcy, there will be a coffee shop, restaurant or law firm occupying their spaces sooner than they’d like to admit.

I can guarantee you that by the time my children are in school, college textbooks will be e-books that people download to their iPads or other tablet devices. (That might not be for a while, mainly due to the fact that my future trophy wife may not even be born yet, but college textbook stores are already becoming obsolete.)
Until that happens, we still have the great equalizer that is the Internet. Unlike the stores in town, which won’t even tell you their prices over the phone because shadiness just runs in their blood, I can look up the lowest prices of all the books I need to buy with the click of a button at bigwords.com.

If I want to rent, I can go to Chegg.com. You can bet that the hour it takes to sell my books online is worth the extra $100 or so more I can get from Amazon.

Instead of being fair, transparent and polite, the Big Three act like bullies thinking that they can still call the shots because student loans or parents cover the costs. False.

Times are changing. I know better than to think that people like those who run our college bookstores will ever change. I’ve had enough of their childish behavior and only go to them if I urgently need to.

There’s the saying that if you fool me once, shame on you, but if you fool me twice, shame on me.