World of Books: most-reported complaints
Automated analysis of 3,438 public Trustpilot reviews published 2026-06-17 to 2026-09-27. TrustScore 4.6 from 548,791 total reviews — see the Trustpilot page. Quick answer: is World of Books legit? Issues below reflect what reviewers reported, not findings of wrongdoing.
Reviewers most often report that items are not as described, accounting for 32% of the 855 complaints identified in the last three months. Delivery failures are the second most common issue, cited in 31% of complaints, with customers noting that packages did not arrive. Additionally, 20% of reviewers mention receiving faulty products, such as books damaged by glue, while 10% describe support as unhelpful. The trend for the first three issues remains flat, while complaints about unhelpful support are falling.
The company claimed its Trustpilot profile on 2021-11-04, uses Trustpilot’s paid features, uses Trustpilot’s AI-assisted replies, and last replied to a negative review on 2026-09-25. Trustpilot ranks it 34 of 46 in Book Store. We last checked this profile on 2026-09-27 and found 200 new reviews. These are facts Trustpilot publishes about the profile, as of our last harvest.
Forum footprint: 42 MoneySavingExpert forum discussions mention this company (browse). Roughly 0 of the top, relevance-sorted search results were posted in the last 90 days — an approximate figure by construction, not a true recency count. Recent thread titles: “World Of Books, Buy 2 Get One Free + Free Delivery, 10% Off Code”, “Anyone been able to contact World of Books?”, “World of Books”.
Elsewhere: 2.6★ on Google (152 reviews) · 4.2★ App Store (11,509) — a 2.0-star gap between its Trustpilot and Google scores.
TrustScore over time
4.6 → 4.6 across 15 census measurements since 2026-08-12. Our own record, independent of Trustpilot’s display.
Reply behaviour over time
Solid: % of negative reviews replied to. Dashed: typical days to reply. Both as reported on this company’s Trustpilot profile, recorded whenever our census re-checked it and a figure had changed — the gaps between points are not equal: 2026-08-15 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-08-18 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-08-21 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-08-24 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-08-27 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-01 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-04 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-07 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-10 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-13 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-16 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-20 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-23 (100%, 0.7d) · 2026-09-27 (100%, 0.7d).
Severity: 8% of this company’s 855 graded complaints were classified as severe (money lost, an essential service cut off, or a problem unresolved for months). See the harm index.
Reviewers here waited a median of 1.5 days between the experience and publishing their negative review (1140 reviews record both dates).
What their policy promises
delivery promise: over £5
“Free UK delivery over £5”
Quoted verbatim from the company’s own published policy (source page); complaint counts are census classifications. As of 2026-09-14.
Policy-page monitoring
We monitor this company’s published policy page for changes. 2 changes detected since we started watching on 2026-09-01:
- 2026-09-15: +4/-5 lines; added: o Fall Reading | o Fall Reading; removed: o LGBTQ+ Shelf | o Summer Reading (snapshot)
- 2026-09-08: +64/-2 lines; added: Read it, Love it, Pass it on SELL YOUR BOOKS | More books in the Routledge Research In Public Administration And Public Policy series; removed: Flash Sale | Books from $2.50 SHOP NOW | View all (snapshot)
Automated change detection on the company’s own published policy page — a record of when the page changed, not a judgement on what changed.
Measured reply time: across 1007 negative reviews that received a public reply, the median wait was 0.6 days — the company profile reports an average of under a day.
Reply quality: of 1007 company replies to negative reviews analysed, 50% engaged with the specific problem and 50% were generic templates.
What employees say
Employees rate World of Books 3.6★ overall from 100 reviews on Glassdoor — the inside view, kept separate from customer complaint statistics. Read the reviews there.
Review provenance: 2738 company-invited reviews in the recent window average 4.70★, while 61 organic (uninvited) reviews average 2.20★.
8% of its 2381 recent 5★ reviews came from accounts that had written only that one review when we captured it (the median across companies is about 39%). A high share is a reason to look closer, not evidence of fake reviews.
Sector benchmark: not as described makes up 32% of this company’s complaints vs a 21% median across 140 ranked companies in its sector.
Review velocity: 96,587 of this company’s 548,791 Trustpilot reviews (18%) were written in the last 12 months.
What are the most common complaints about World of Books?
Not as described
273 reports · 32% of complaintssteady“Ordered 2 books, Only one turned up”
The company replied on 2026-07-27: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“this last book Lemn Sissay and the previous books were dreadful, with pages cornered on 50% of pages shocking covers really tatty”
The company replied on 2026-08-18: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“only 4 of the 8 books were actually in very good condition”
The company replied on 2026-08-17: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Delivery failed
266 reports · 31% of complaintssteady“My books did not arrive. Your AI agent can't help. None of my emails or support tickets have been answered”
The company replied on 2026-09-04: “Hi, thanks for leaving us a review. We’re sorry to hear this and would love the chance to put it right. If you could drop our customer service team a quick email at [email protected] with…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“You want a review? How about you send the books first.”
The company replied on 2026-09-01: “We understand your frustration regarding the unreceived books. If you could drop our customer service team a quick email at [email protected] with your order number and a few details about…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“The books did not arrive. The Italian delivery company said they could not find us.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Faulty product
168 reports · 20% of complaintssteady“My book was damaged by the glue used in the wrapping.”
The company replied on 2026-08-17: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Most CD's arrived with broken cases - and will CD's showing scratches and food smears. Posted with no protective packaging.”
The company replied on 2026-08-18: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Ordered 2 books, the first arrived but was bent in half to fit the packaging, 2nd no updates or delivery detail”
The company replied on 2026-08-18: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Support unhelpful
88 reports · 10% of complaintsfalling“the app dies not recognise my email nor password NO SOLUTION AVOID”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“they also refuse to send back any items”
The company replied on 2026-08-06: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“payment withheld with no real accountability.”
The company replied on 2026-08-03: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Delivery late
75 reports · 9% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“After 2 days and the order not being dispatched i messaged them asking when they would be dispatched.”
The company replied on 2026-08-27: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience. If you could drop our customer service team a quick email at [email protected] with your order number…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“after four days there was still no update on my order status”
The company replied on 2026-08-03: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Delivery was very much later than promised.”
The company replied on 2026-07-27: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to make contact.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Support unreachable
42 reports · 5% of complaintssteady“My books did not arrive. Your AI agent can't help. None of my emails or support tickets have been answered”
The company replied on 2026-09-04: “Hi, thanks for leaving us a review. We’re sorry to hear this and would love the chance to put it right. If you could drop our customer service team a quick email at [email protected] with…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“you can’t speak to anyone, you can only email back and forward between different people every time, and they don’t provide any information.”
The company replied on 2026-08-18: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“They never replied”
The company replied on 2026-08-19: “Hello, Thank you for sharing your review. We’re sorry to hear about your experience and would like the chance to put things right. Please email our customer service team at…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
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Method: reviews are classified into a fixed complaint taxonomy by an automated reader; every category shown is backed by at least two verbatim quotes from distinct reviews. Trends are computed from dated review counts only. Negative reviews are deliberately over-sampled for evidence depth; headline percentages use an unbiased recent sample only. Report updated 2026-09-27.