Discover Books Goes Dark Leaving eBay & Amazon Buyers In The Lurch
Mega-bookseller Discover Books, who sold millions of items on eBay, Amazon and their direct website, appears to have closed up shop, leaving buyers in the lurch with no answers and without the items they ordered over the last month.
Buyers in the eBay community noticed something amiss when Discover Books started receiving hundreds of negative feedback reviews due to non-shipment.
Why does EBay allow the seller to use their site to sell books. The are hundreds of complaints related to never received books in their negative feedback for the last month. If you scroll through the negative feedback for the last month, it’s quite shocking. There is something seriously amiss.
Despite the fact the seller is “ away until April 20th”, the problem appears preexisting. I looked at the feedback of other used booksellers and this complaint isn’t prevalent with other dealers.
Initially it appeared there may have been a glitch with eBay's Time Away feature but another buyer chimed in to say the situation appeared to be more nefarious than that as Discover Books had been uploading tracking that never arrived and had stopped answering questions - using Time Away to stall buyers looking for their orders.
Actually I bought from the seller on March 8th. I purchased and paid for the book and on the 11th I got a tracking #. Item was supposed to be delivered on the 16th-20th. I waited and no book.
At the time I purchased to book they had over 1 million items listed. I remember because I thought how would you be able to maintain getting that many books out as you are selling. I figured I'd still wait a couple more days. On the 25th still no book and hundreds upon hundreds of negative feedback start showing up on their account for not sending out items.
I filed a Item not received complaint and about this time they put their store on vacation until the 20th of April and left everyone hanging. I ended up receiving a refund thru Ebay.
Digging deeper, not only has Discover Books removed all or most of their over 1 million listings from eBay, they've also removed them from Amazon, some of their social media profiles have been deleted or locked, and their direct website is currently "having difficulties."
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows the website was still live on March 12 and was changed to this locked down password protected "maintenance mode" sometime between then and March 26.
A quick Google Search also shows their warehouse in Toledo, Ohio as "permanently closed."
So what happened to Discover Books?
The company may have gone silent, but that's not stopping the discussion on Reddit where some users who claim to have inside information say the company has gone out of business and left employees in the lurch just as much as buyers.
I was an employee at the Hammond IN plant. The company closed for good March 22,2024.
The employees were not given any notice on March 11,2024. Only 6 employees were kept to more or less clean up.
Some comments indicated they thought issues between Discover Books and Amazon could be to blame for the apparent business failure.
Bulk Book seller here that had a business relationship with them for years. Doesnt look good for Discover. My contact for pickups has not emailed me back in 2 months. I also haven't received my quarterly payout from Q4 2023 and they about to owe for Q1 too. I have been hearing through the drivers for months that they were having trouble getting paid from amazon and now it looks like bezos whacked them.
But another claiming to be an ex-employee said the blame mostly fell on Discover Books for mismanagement.
As an ex employee, in no way was it Bezos. It was Discover Books own fault. Incompetent and Greedy management is what brought the company down. Not other companies or the government is the reason Discover got whacked.
Many buyers say they have been given tracking numbers that do not work using Discover Books' preferred shipping partner, OSM Worldwide, and troublingly, OSM is allegedly telling buyers they no longer have a business relationship with Discover Books.
I have two orders purchased from DB's website, a few days apart, early March. I have tracking numbers for each, but I don't believe the books were even packaged, let alone shipped.
I contacted DB's supposed shipping partner, OSM, and was told DB is no longer a customer of OSM and that when tracking numbers are first given to customers, it doesn't mean the items have shipped, only that the labels were created.
My orders have been in Toledo for two weeks. I waited over a week for the orders to be processed, emailed customer support, and received a response by the day's end. Then they gave me tracking numbers the next day. That was the last time anybody replied to me.
We've attempted to reach out to Discover Books for more information, but have not received any comment at time of publishing.
Buyer's who are still waiting for their purchases would be wise to consider time limits for making Item Not Received claims through eBay and Amazon or chargebacks with their financial institutions as orders made in March could soon go past 30 days.
Are you a Discover Books customer waiting for an order that may never arrive or an ex-employee with details about what happened? Let us know in the comments below!
