Fishpond

Fishpond is officially the WORST place to buy books online from!

I pre-ordered the Mark of Athena from Fishpond on 21st August 2012 for R179 (which I thought was a good price at the time, until I found out differently). I was told that shipping and delivery was completely free. The Mark of Athena was set to be released on October 2nd. I was to get the book "as soon as possible after publication".

However, something went wrong and I received this email:
Thanks for your order of Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus) with Fishpond.com.

This email is to inform you that there has been a temporary delay in sourcing this item. The stock information we had at the time of your order was out of date so we have had to reorder from another source.

We now expect it to arrive at our warehouse between 27/10/2012 AND 07/11/2012. You will receive an email notification on dispatch.

Well I'd already ordered the book, what more could I do, so I just took it as it came and let it be.

I then receive this email:
Hooray! Your items will be arriving soon:

* Heroes of Olympus

We anticipate delivery between 13/11/12 and 19/11/12.

So I thought FINALLY! I'm finally going to get my book! But I just had to wait. So I've been patiently awaiting my book, thinking that it will be delivered to my home or receive a phone call or email that my book has arrived and needs to be picked up. But today I get a slip of paper in the post saying that it's my "FINAL" notification to pick up my parcel. The "Date notified" states "2012-10-30" - I only received this notification TODAY, 2012-11-15. AND I have to pay R72.96 for delivery!

Over and above this, I was charged a conversion fee on my payment which was converted from rands to dollars (ALSO something that was NOT mentioned).

So I essentially overpaid for this book which is something that really pisses me off! I hate been had and feeling like I've wasted money. And I've wasted a whole lot of money here! Especially seen as the book will be sold for a cheaper price right here at CNA!

NEVER buying from Fishpond again!

The Mark of Athena...

I got my hands on the first book of the "Heroes of Olympus" series : "The Lost Hero" early this year. I couldn't put it down till the end - it was SO amazing! I immediately went out and got the next book, "The Son of Neptune", which was just as amazing and intense!

As the book neared the end I had this great sense of dread that it would not end as I had planned for it to. The entire story of "The Son of Neptune" was basically building you up to a certain point, and I had expected that point to be met  by the end of the book... It was however NOT.

I was utterly devastated and on the verge of pulling out my hair! I knew this series could just NOT end, it would be completely lame to end so open ended and unfulfilled. So I went online and saw that there was to be another installment, "The Mark of Athena" - the only problem was that it was only coming out on the 2nd of October!

After some ranting and raving I eventually managed to calm down and accept the reality - I would just have to wait, there was nothing else that could be done. I distracted myself with other books and managed to get by...

THEN, sometime later, I get an email from my cousin telling me that the book is available on "Fishpond" AND it is at a much cheaper price than I can expect to get it at anywhere else. I want to be sure of this before just ordering the book, so Sahil and I check out numerous book retailers online - Fishbond is the cheapest (and they also don't charge a delivery fee). So I order the book. However, something my cousin did not know, is that they charge a conversion fee - to convert our rands to their dollars. (Yes Leri, I'm blaming you for this one, only a little though, just for the bad/incomplete info - actually buying the book from there is my own fault). Alas, it turns out that after this conversion fee, the book works out to the same price as some stores, and even more than others...

So you can imagine the pain I went through on learning of this, but as Sahil put it, the book was already ordered and the money already gone through, there was nothing that could be done... I just had to write it down as a lesson learnt and NEVER to order from "Fishpond" again!

Today, the day "The Mark of Athena" came out, the day I've been eagerly awaiting, I find out that I am only to get my book by the 16th of October! And that's at the least! I guess I should have taken into consideration the travel time and what not, but I had just assumed that they would most probably get their hands on the book and post it for it to arrive to me by the 2nd October! (I clearly was not thinking clearly).

Hence, I am now completely disappointed. I could have just waited and bought the book at Exclusive books today at a cheaper price AND earned points for it!