Half Price Books

I went to the Whitney Way store with an elderly friend who had a dozen books, mostly psychology, which she wanted to sell. The clerk told us that it would take her at least half an hour to find out the value of the books, and we could browse in the meantime. This seemed odd, but we browsed and waited...and waited. Meanwhile, other people with books to sell were also forced to wait unreasonable lengths of time, then called up one by one and offered incredibly low prices for their books. My 87-year-old friend in frail health was finally called up and offered one quarter for her dozen books.(She refused it, and said she would donate the books to the store, since they were obviously desperate.) The book-buying service at Whitney Way is obviously a scam which functions primarily as a way to force sellers to "browse" in the hopes that out of sheer boredom they'll buy several books themselves. It operates like the sort of restaurant which forces every customer, even those with reservations, to wait in the bar. When the hopeful book sellers are finally permitted to conduct the business for which they came, they're cheated. Whoever manages this store, and this system, should be ashamed.