UBC Bookstore aka Black Hole Financial Institution

You put money in, you get nothing back. Well, not exactly. The UBC Bookstore is well known for it's ridiculous prices and hazardous line-ups come September. To make the pain of buying a $130 textbook for one of your six classes (which each require a similar priced book), they have implemented a "Buy Back" program where you can get cash for your no-longer-useful books.

What they DON'T advertise is the fact that you will NOT recieve a "fair" price for your book. And that's only if they haven't switched to the new version of the text that probably just came out.

Here's my experience... I bought Systems and Signals 2nd Edition back in January. It cost me roughly $130. Today the price of a new copy is about $122. The stupid part is that I used this textbook once... as in I opened it then closed it five minutes later. It should also be noted that this occured while I was buying the book in the store in January. The course NEVER USED IT ONCE. So, in BRAND NEW CONDITION, I took it to the buy back booth and was told I could get $42.50 for it. That's 1/3 of the retail price they could get for it since it's still as new as the other books they sell. If I sold it to a student, I could probably get $80 with no haggling at all since the cheapest used copies (which there are none of) are going for $92.

Now, this could get even worse if I hold on to the book. It would not surprise me at all if the book goes into a Third Edition this fall. Of course, all that would change would be a few pictures and the cover most likely. Yet, the bookstore would never buy an "out of date" book...

Therefore, I'll have to try and find where that class is being held and post some messages advertising the book for cheap.