ThriftBooks Reviews, Complaints & Contacts

Contacts & Payment

PhoneEmailAddress

Customer service & general contact

• Customer service email[email protected]
• Customer Service phone(888) 979-1404

Cancel, billing & returns

• Online Returns Center (order number and email)returns.narvar.com/thriftbooks/returns ↗

Account & login

• Sell books to ThriftBooks (BuyBack, account login required)thriftbooks.com/buyback ↗

Official website

• Official websitethriftbooks.com ↗

Privacy requests

• Toll-free phone for privacy questions(888) 979-1408

Reference numbers (not support lines)

• Listed by BBBBusiness phone listed by BBB(253) 275-2241

Locations

• Headquarters18300 Cascade Ave S, Ste 150, Tukwila, WA 98188

Is ThriftBooks Legitimate?

BBB and Trustpilot figures

Legal name

Thrift Books Global, LLC

Founded

2003

Business type

Online retailer of used and new books, DVDs and e-gift cards (ThriftBooks.com), operated by Thrift Books Global, LLC, Tukwila, Washington

Website

thriftbooks.comSource: ThriftBooks home page, checked Oct 27, 2026

Headquarters

Tukwila, WASource: ThriftBooks Privacy Policy, Contact Us section, mailing address, checked Oct 27, 2026

Independent Sources

Complaints and reviews: BBB, Trustpilot and this site

The figures on this page come from different platforms with different reviewers.

BBB. BBB lists Thrift Books Global, LLC as an accredited business since April 22, 2025, with an A+ letter grade. Its listing gives the same Cascade Ave S street address as the company's Privacy Policy and ZIP code, but with Seattle as the city name. The profile counts 105 complaints in the last three years, 39 of them in the last 12 months; of the 105, BBB marks 44 as resolved and the other 61 as answered by the business. The most recent complaints concern a pre-order cancellation the vendor refused, orders delayed or stuck in transit, and an unexpected pending charge. Separately from complaints, the profile has 39 customer reviews, which average 1.21 out of 5. BBB opened its file on the company on April 14, 2005 and lists a business start date of September 17, 2003.

Trustpilot. The Trustpilot page for www.thriftbooks.com shows a TrustScore of 4.7 from 2,981,497 reviews, 88 percent of them 5-star and 3 percent 1-star. The company claimed the profile in November 2014 and invites its customers to leave reviews, positive or negative; Trustpilot says it has replied to 99 percent of negative reviews.

This site. No complaint about ThriftBooks has been published on USAComplaints.com.

ThriftBooks orders, shipping, returns, cancellations and refunds: what the company's own pages say

The steps on this page come from ThriftBooks' Terms of Use (last updated September 24, 2026) and its Help Center. Where two company pages say different things, both are quoted.

Order has not arrived. Delivery time is one to two days of order processing plus transit. The Shipping Costs page gives U.S. transit times of 4-10 business days for Standard shipping (free on qualifying orders of $15 or more), 1-6 business days for Express (used items only) and 2-3 business days for Expedited, and says delivery to Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico “can take up to 45 days to arrive.” The Help Center's tracking article gives a longer Standard range for new books, 8-12 business days after shipment. An order with several items may arrive in separate packages from different warehouses, each with its own tracking number under My Account, then My Orders. Guest checkouts cannot be tracked on the website, but the shipping email still carries the tracking details. Under section 13 of the Terms, a refund for a late order is at the company's “sole discretion” and is processed “only if such order does not arrive at your shipping address within 20 days of your order for US domestic orders and within 45 days for international orders.” Section 15 says the risk of loss passes to the customer once the order is handed to the carrier.

Tracking says delivered, but nothing arrived. The Help Center notes that carriers sometimes mark a package delivered before it arrives. Check the shipping address in My Account and the mailbox, porch or other drop spots, and allow 24 hours; standard U.S. orders are delivered by USPS. If more than 24 hours have passed since the “Delivered” scan, contact ThriftBooks.

Damaged or wrong item. Returns are accepted within 30 days of delivery when the problem is the company's error, such as a damaged item or a wrong order. Open the Online Returns Center (returns.narvar.com/thriftbooks/returns), enter the order number and the email on the account, choose the item and the reason (photos are optional), and a prepaid return label arrives by email. The Help Center says to use that label and “wait for authorization before shipping, as returns sent without approval cannot be processed.” The Terms (section 13) word the step differently: “no return is authorized without the customer first obtaining a return authorization number by contacting ThriftBooks Customer Service at [email protected].” If the Returns Center does not offer a return, email Customer Service. Never send a book back without approval: the Terms say an unauthorized return may be disposed of “however we deem appropriate,” with no refund or exchange. Once the return arrives, the Help Center says refunds are issued within 48 hours and show on the original payment method within 2-5 business days.

What is not returnable. Terms section 13 excludes items “purchased for $11.00 or less,” requests made after the 30-day window and items “no longer desired by the customer after purchase.” Collectible books, marked with a teal “jewel,” are not returned, exchanged or refunded “as a result of the condition” or over a dispute about volume or edition. Media items (vinyl records, DVDs, video games) “can only be accepted in unopened and original condition.” The Help Center's What Qualifies for Returns article repeats the $11.00 exclusion but, in the same article, tells customers with items under $11 or over $75 to contact Customer Service, so a low-priced damaged or wrong item is worth raising by email. The Terms also say that where a refund is agreed the company “will provide you with a store credit” unless it agrees to refund the original payment method or the law requires it, and, in the Terms' words, “Except as otherwise required by law, store credit will expire 365 days from receipt.” Section 13 also says “Delivery fees, taxes, and handling fees previously paid by you are all non-refundable” and reserves “a restocking fee, handling fee, and return shipping fee for any return, refund, or exchange that is not the result of our error.”

Cancelling an order. The Help Center says to open My Account, find the order and click “Request Cancelation”; if the button is not there “your order has probably already started the shipping process,” and “once an order enters our fulfillment center, we can't stop it from shipping.” On refunds after a cancellation the article says “if you've already been charged, we'll process your refund within a few business days.” For orders with new books, “once NEW items are marked as 'Processing' by our vendor, we are unable to cancel the item(s) and a return may be required.” The Terms say the company is “unable to accommodate purchase cancellations and address changes after an item has shipped.”

Package returned to sender. The Help Center says a “small restocking fee” of “$2.00 per item, if applicable” may be charged, and that processing can take “up to 14 days.” The article says “We'll refund your order total minus the restocking fee once we receive the returned package,” and its only listed no-fee case is: “Postal service errors: If there's no functional post office in your area (rare), we'll issue a full refund with no restocking fee.”

Account suspension or deactivation. The Terms say in section 6 that the company reserves “the right to cancel a User Account at any time for any reason in our sole discretion.” Section 9 says it may “limit, suspend, terminate, modify, or delete your Account or access to the Services” for actual or suspected improper use, “with or without notice to you,” and that a customer may cancel their own account by emailing [email protected] or through Account preferences. Section 13 adds: “if you request refunds at a rate in excess of a normal retail customer rate, as determined by us in our sole discretion, we may take steps to limit your activity, up to and including suspending or terminating your Account.” The Terms set out no separate appeal procedure, so the route is an email to [email protected]. A customer who wants to close an account must, under section 13, first spend the remaining store credit or ask for a Digital Code for the balance.

Contacting the company. Email [email protected] or use the live chat on the Contact page, which says “We typically respond within 6 hours.” The Contact page lists no phone line; the Terms and Privacy Policy give (888) 979-1404 (Customer Service, named for text-message questions) and (888) 979-1408 (toll free, for privacy questions). Put the order number, the item, the problem and photos of any damage in the first message, and keep the reply.

If the company does not resolve it.

• Your card issuer. If you paid by credit card and the order never arrived or was not as described, you can dispute the charge with your card issuer. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act a written billing-error dispute must reach the issuer within 60 days after the statement showing the charge was sent. That clock runs from the statement date, not from the end of the 20-day late-order window in the Terms, so do not let it lapse while waiting on the company. PayPal and debit-card disputes follow their own rules and deadlines.
• Washington Attorney General. The company is based in Washington, so its informal complaint service (atg.wa.gov/file-complaint) is open to customers in any state. The office sends the complaint to the business and asks for a response within 30 days, but says it cannot force a business to resolve a complaint. Your own state's attorney general also takes consumer complaints.
• Federal Trade Commission. A report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov is shared with law-enforcement agencies and used to investigate and bring cases; the FTC says it cannot resolve individual reports.
• BBB. A complaint can be filed at bbb.org/file-a-complaint against Thrift Books Global, LLC, and BBB passes it to the business for a response.
• Court. Because of the arbitration agreement in section 22 of the Terms (summarized in the court records section), the main court option is small claims court in Washington or in the county where you live or work.

Court records naming Thrift Books Global, LLC

Court records

A complaint filed in court contains allegations, not findings. The two cases on this page concern customer data and the books ThriftBooks sells.

Court & Public Records

Who operates ThriftBooks and what the company says about itself

Operator. The Terms of Use and Privacy Policy (both last updated September 24, 2026) name Thrift Books Global LLC as the provider of thriftbooks.com and related sites, including bookclubhub.com. The Privacy Policy gives the mailing address as 18300 Cascade Ave S #150, Tukwila, WA 98188. Washington's business registry, as shown on OpenCorporates, lists Thrift Books Global, LLC as an active foreign limited liability company at that address, registered in Delaware. BBB lists Mike Ward and Kenneth Goldstein, both as owner/manager, as principal contacts.

What the company says about itself. Its Our Story page says ThriftBooks started in 2003 with a pickup truck, a storage unit and a single Amazon listing, and calls the company “the world's largest online independent used bookseller.” It says its stock comes from libraries, donations, its BuyBack program and reseller partners, that every book is graded by hand before it ships (conditions run from Like New to Acceptable), and that U.S. standard shipping is free on qualifying orders of $15 or more. These are the company's own statements.

Frequently Asked Questions