When is a book not a book? When it's part of a two-book package.

[pne]

So... in preparation for my trip to Switzerland, I thought I'd get a book on the Bernina Express and a book on travelling around Grisons with bus and train.

The books arrived today... and I saw that the "Glacier and Bernina Express" book was a vinyl cover holding two books: a 50-page one on the Glacier Express and a 150-page book that was the "around Grisons by bus and train" book I had bought separately.

So I thought I'd send back the single book since I didn't need two copies of the same book. But after thumbing through the first book (labelled "Glacier Express, Bernina Express, and the Rhaetian Railways"), I found that it covered only the Glacier Express; presumably the Bernina express was covered in the general "getting around the canton" book, though a quick flip through the table of contents didn't see it discussed specifically. (Though the route it takes seems to be in there, along with the other train routes in Grisons.)

So now my plan is to send back the two-book package, since (a) I don't need the "around Grisons by bus and train" book twice and I have no interest in the Glacier Express. (At the moment, that is.)

Unfortunately, you have to cover the costs of postage yourself if you send back an order worth less than €40 (but then, you don't pay for postage when you buy books). And they say that you're supposed to keep the receipt you get when you send the thing off, but the only products where the post office stamps something and gives it to you is parcels, I think—rather than, say, plain letter or book rate, which would be cheaper.

I think I'll go the latter rate, anyway, to keep costs down. Will have to ask at the post office tomorrow whether it meets the criteria for book rate or for a commercial sample, otherwise I'll just suck up the €2.20 for latter rate. Better than €3.90 for a parcel, though.

And I wish the web site had been more up-front about the make-up of the "book".

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

But if you don't have a receipt, it's easy for them to claim they didn't get anything at all or that you didn't send it off in time. Also I have no idea how such a company works. But if even they tell you to keep the receipt, I could imagine if they have no place to store the goods (and possibly can't even resell them anyway) and don't pay someone for looking through all the goods that people send back, they just directly throw them all away and all what counts for them later is that you have the receipt. I don't know if it really works like this, but I see the risk.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Ok, I just realised you wrote the entry two days ago. So you've probably sent it off already anyway.