<p>Does UVa book store rent text books? I've looked into renting from amazon.com and half.com, the student reviews are terrible with horror stories of trying to return books that don't get received and then being charged triple the new price automatically to debit and credit cards. The idea of renting sounds good in theory and it could potentially save a lot of money. Does anyone else have experience with this that can offer some advice?</p>
<p>My daughter rented a book from Amazon, and it worked fine. The trick is to make sure you follow the directions and send it back before the deadline. She also sold back books to Amazon and it worked fine. </p>
<p>Most college bookstores offer peanuts when they buy used books. Many UVa students use facebook to sell their books directly to other students.</p>
<p>My son bought all of his books through Amazon. It was cheaper to buy a new book from Amazon than a used book from the UVa bookstore. In many cases, a new book makes sense if there is a requirement to have the access card. You can find the access card for sale separately, but it is not always easy. Type in the ISBN number to make sure you get the right version. There are different textbooks with similar names.</p>
<p>Amazon has student prime. You can sign up for it with an edu email. It is free initially and then available to renew at a discount for students. Once you sign up, your whole family can get free 2 day shipping (except for the independent sellers), and there is also access to many online movies (mostly old ones). It is best to try to buy your textbooks early through Amazon, because the cheaper books sell out quickly (assuming that you are 100% sure you will be taking the course)… </p>
<p>@Charliesch thanks! I will discuss with my S. Perhaps the tons of negative reviews I’ve seen are from people who return too late or don’t follow instructions properly. There were reviewers who named particluar third party vendors (via amazon) who were dishonest in crediting rental returns and warning others to avoid. I would like to try this because of the potential to save quite a bit of money. </p>
<p>I actually recommend not renting, but buying off of Amazon used and re-selling ASAP on Amazon. I lost a book once (my own fault) and it would have actually cost me more to have rented and replace the book that just outright buy it. I got around to selling books from classes from 2006-2010 this past spring (finally) and made a healthy amount of money back, so I can’t even imagine how much you could make from selling them almost immediately. Selling books on Amazon is super easy and I just mailed everything via 2-day USPS Flat Rate (~$5 per item, $4 of which was covered by Amazon). </p>