I am currently a college student and last semester I went to the University Bookstore to purchase my chemistry textbook for the current semester, so that I could read ahead over winter break. I asked the manager if they had any copies of the organic chemistry textbook for the next semester and she replied yes and went and got the book for me. The textbook cost 279$. When this semester started I was shocked to see that my textbook did not match the textbook of the other students in the class, all of who purchased the book at the beginning of the semester. When I went to the bookstore to return it and buy the new textbook I was told that I could not return it because the bookstore no longer sold the old version of the textbook. Then I asked them when the textbook changed and the manager of the store (the same lady who gave me the wrong book) told me that the Chemistry Department changed the textbook over winter break. I came to the conclusion that I was the victim of bad luck and started saving to buy the new text which I recieved yesterday (33% of the way through the semester with no text in a chemistry class). Today, when I told my teacher that I finally got my own book, he asked what I meant and I told him this same story. When I finished he informed me that the Chemistry Department informed the University Bookstore of the switch several days before Thanksgiving and that I should lodge a complaint with the bookstore, which I did after procuring the form that the Chemistry Department used to notify the bookstore, which was filed a full month before I was sold the useless textbook. When I showed the form and my receipt to the bookstore manager she still refused to give me a refund saying that the return policy had expired. I am extremely interested in taking this to small claims court on the grounds of negligence (as the manager she should have known the text was changing) or fraud (she intentially sold me the wrong book knowing that the bookstore would lose money on unsold out of date textbooks). However I do not know if those "charges" are applicible in small claims court. Also, if they still refuse to refund my money after I talk to the next person above the manager (if there is one), I want to make a claim for 33% of my tuition for the 5 credit hours that the textbook applies too. At 740 per credit hour that claim would be about 1200. Because my grades suffered dramatically as a result of not having the book.
