The Consumers' Foundation yesterday announced the results of a seven-week long inspection of the return and exchange policies of various Taipei City bookstores and book vendors.
Included in the foundation's survey were stores on Chung-ching South Road, the city's so-called "book street," and large chains such as Eslite, Hess, Cave Books, Shinlou Books and Sanmin Books. Hypermarts such as Carrefour, Costco and RT-Mart were also included.
Inspection methods included handing out questionnaires to vendors and conducting experiments in which people tried to return or exchange books.
The foundation decided to organize the inspection after receiving a complaint from Hsu Chen-ming (許振明), an economics professor at National Taiwan University, who was charged a handling fee when he tried to return a book his son had bought.
"I had bought the book just 15 minutes before. I hadn't even opened it, but they were trying to charge me a handling fee to return it," Hsu said.
Lu Hsin-chang (
"Selling books encourages the spread of knowledge. It should not be a chance for vendors to cheat consumers," Lu said.
"Buying books is a big part of our lives," Huang said. "But the books must have proper labels clearly stating the vendor's return or exchange policy, or else consumers would be stripped of their rights," he said.
Of the 20 bookstores and vendors inspected, one-fourth, including Sanming Books, Kingstone and Carrefour, do not have clearly displayed signs stating their return policy, Huang said.
According to questionaire responses, most vendors say consumers must abide by a seven-day return policy in order to get a refund or exchange. However, some bookstores, such as Shangda Books, do not allow returns at all, while Shu-hsiang Lin charges a 5 percent handling fee on returns.
"Even though the questionnaires may not reflect the whole truth, the foundation still takes them into serious consideration," Huang said.
He said that attempts to return books at several bookstores showed that the stores' policies differed substantially from what they had said in their questionaire responses.
The foundation praised Cave Books and Eslite for the clarity of their return-policy statements. Sanming Books and Hess policies benefit consumers the most, according to the questionnaire results.
The foundation said that Costco officials had refused to answer the questionnaire.
Consumers must pay close attention to the different return policies of each bookstore, Huang said.
"Most stores state that a book can be returned when it is damaged," he said.
"It is hard to define what is considered to be a damaged book though. It might mean missing pages or misprints. If the book itself is stained, the store might not let you return it," he said.
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