RedShelf Reviews

The Platform is Terribly Designed I tried posting feedback through their reading app but kept getting error messages. The whole site is confusing, poorly put together, and frustrating to navigate. Whoever designed this interface clearly has never actually read a book or used basic software. The progress indicator they use looks like a video player, which makes zero sense for reading and doesn't actually help because you can't see which page you're jumping to. And you can't just scroll smoothly through pages, which is incredibly annoying. I paid for this textbook and have to suffer through this nightmare. There's plenty more I could complain about. Just steer clear of this platform.

Waste of Money, Plain and Simple I wish I could rate this lower than one star because I'm that frustrated. This service is a disaster. I bought an ebook for my Human Anatomy class and run into problems every single time I open it. Pages don't display right, graphics are missing, and sometimes all the text gets shoved to one side so you can barely read anything. I've called their support team twice now and both times they just tell me to clear my browser cache, which doesn't help at all. I've tried different browsers and even opened it on two separate computers and nothing changes. The platform is just broken. Do yourself a favor and find another way to get your textbooks.

This Company Has Major Issues I've got serious problems with this vendor. For starters, they want way too much personal data just to set up an account. On top of that, the cost is ridiculous for what amounts to a temporary online rental. Paying 60 bucks for 180 days of access? That's insane. The download speed is also super slow. Since my college basically forced this on us for one of my classes, I'm stuck using it. Honestly, I'd give them a zero if I could. Skip this entirely.

Customer Service is Nonexistent Their support team is basically useless. If something goes wrong, getting someone to help you is nearly impossible. I stopped ordering from them and just buy my textbooks through Amazon instead. This company needs to disappear from the market.

The Interface is Absolutely Terrible The design is completely broken. You can't even search for terms without the whole site crashing.

Got Burned by False Advertising I was thrilled when my school bookstore said they had lifetime ebook ownership available. Being someone who relies on ebooks exclusively, I was really disappointed by how unclear everything actually is about what you're purchasing. 1) Saying you 'own' the book is misleading because you only keep access as long as your account stays active and you share your info with them. That's not real ownership, it's just temporary access with strings attached. 2) When they say downloadable, what they really mean is you can view it through your browser cache. If you want to read it on a different device, you have to remove it from one and load it on another, which is a pain for people switching between gadgets. 3) You're stuck with whatever highlighting and notes features they offer, no way to export content to Word or study apps. 4) The audiobook narration sounds robotic and artificial, nothing like natural speech. 5) Their platform won't work with accessibility tools, which honestly feels discriminatory. When I complained, the company basically refused to address any of these issues and told me I'd been fully refunded, which wasn't true. They only gave back part of what I spent.

Find a Different Option Everything was smooth with my ebook during the first few weeks of class. Then my access got locked up with an error and I couldn't open it anymore. I contacted support and they said they'd look into it. That was weeks ago and I still can't get into my book. My grades are tanking because of this. After begging for help, they finally said they didn't actually sell it to me directly, so there's nothing they can do. I NEED ACCESS TO MY TEXTBOOK. If your college offers bundled textbook costs, it might look attractive, but don't fall for it. You'll save yourself headaches and protect your grades by renting elsewhere or trying a different platform.

Charging for Materials That Should Be Free UPDATE: Bumped this up to 4 stars since I got a fast reply from their team and they manually removed those charges for me. Big shout out to Joe for taking care of it! So my school's bookstore switched to this vendor and suddenly there were extra charges on my bill for course materials that are actually freely available online through open access licensing. They used fear tactics to keep students from declining these charges, never told anyone what specific materials they were adding, and didn't give my professor enough time to figure out what was happening before the deadline. I ended up not using any of these materials, but since customer service was notified after the cutoff, they wouldn't give me my money back. It's a sketchy move that takes advantage of how complicated university billing can be to squeeze cash out of students who can least afford it.