HOTBOOKSALE.COM, DISCOUNTBOOKSALE.COM OR SMARTSAVINGSCENTER.COM. Horrible customer service communication, wrongful credit card charges fraud wrongful credit card charges Brooklyn, New York

I purchased books on 03/03/09 from DiscountBookSale.com. They sent me an email notifying me that their items were not in stock. I called them right away to cancel my membership. Customer service told me to wait 24 hours so as to process both requests correctly. I called again to remind them that I was cancelling my book order and membership.

I received emails on 3/10/09,3/18/09 and 3/26/09 informing me on the status of my order that was supposed to have been cancelled. I called them again, on all three occasions, to cancel my order ASAP. On 04/01/09 they sent me an email notification that they were ready to ship the order and on 04/02/09 they charged $13.33 from my credit card for the shipment.

I had to call them yet again on 04/05/09 and I spent several hours (not including the amount of time I waited on hold) with the customer service staff. However, they shipped the books anyway. I received the package and sent it, unopened, back to them with the RMA# on the shipping label. They were in possession of these books since 04/30/09.

I spoke with the CS reps on 04/24/09, 04/30/09, 05/25/05, 6/19/09 and 08/16/09. It was all to no avail. I received an email on 6/19/09 explaining that return shipping costs would not be refunded since the books were not defective. So they send me these books and I have to pay to return them when the package was not opened and the books (even by their account) were not defective? Well I have yet to see even the partial refund (forget the out-of-pocket shipping costs) since almost 2 months ago.

Their CS lines sometimes give off such a high-frequency screech that I was forced to hang up the phone and try again. They love to put the consumer on hold for a long time and transfer several times. All these amount to unacceptably poor CS communication skills.

Please do not ever consider purchasing items from these guys because they use very shady and questionable practices and it is a pain to go through all of their so-called CS "support", so save yourself months of headaches.