After the article “Children’s audio books caused a sensation, but customers buy them and resell them at inflated prices”, a reader of Iskra.bg sent a letter to our editors, in which she shared her experience of buying the volumes of the collection. Victoria Ilieva tells:
“I saw that we might share an opinion on the matter of magical tales, and I decided to take advantage. I saw the ad on TV right when issue 1 came out. Then there was plenty and I bought for myself and loved ones.
I have a small child. It so happened that two of the evenings on which the next issues were to be released, we stayed up very late. As a result, I used to go to the newsstand next to us around 10:00. Unfortunately, by then there was not a single issue as the woman kindly replied, “Girl, they brought me 8 issues. Who should I give them to first?!“ Accordingly, every time I search, I also go through „Metro“, there are never any available. My only remaining option is „Inmedia“, where for the second time I’ve caught the latest issue.
While I’m walking around, two of my friends are walking around in other parts of the city to the booths, where there are none as well. The last time, my friend had to order an acquaintance of hers from Sofia to send it to her, because I got the last issue in „Inmedia“, and in other places they were simply undiscoverable.
I’ve been a Disney fan since I was little, ever since I had a child I’ve wanted everything to be Disney. The collection is just amazing, they thought it up wonderfully. My dream is to collect all the books and I have even already planned how to arrange and store them in a special place in the children’s room, as we will order from a carpenter to make shelves like the Disney castle on which to keep the toys.
Unfortunately, this search is extremely frustrating and discouraging every time. Not only for me, my friend was determined to collect them, and finally gave up because more than 6 places had run out before lunch. I hope that with the next issues this will be corrected and we will be able to delight our children with all the characters and tales.
They are also undetectable on the site, and the moment they are released, the information reaches Facebook groups and people buy them to abuse. They make you give three times more money, they supposedly hide behind a noble cause and whoever gave more money wins the book. Soon I came across a woman selling a breast pump for 160 leva and the booklet as a bonus… They have already invented 1000 ways to misuse these booklets.
I hope they release more copies in the future and we don’t have to resort to the option of buying books and lining the pockets of crooks. I have seen an ad for 200 BGN for a booklet. Do you think this is normal? I’m not a fan of such practices, but such ads have found their master. It turned out that there are dozens of angry mothers who make fake orders for them and then do not go to collect them from their offices to push them with a courier service. I’m against that, but that’s what I witnessed too.
On the groups, thousands of mothers write which number they are looking for, and you know what made me the most angry? The publisher had attached to one of the books contact details, if we have missed an issue, to write to them. I also wrote to them because a friend had missed one issue. It turned out that they don’t have numbers to send us, but have us check on the site. And what did they write to write to them about, when they can’t help at all?
The situation is deplorable…
Hope there are no disappointed children! And I will hope to continue to have at least this luck to catch the last numbers…”
We remind you that “We, the users” commented on the case for Iskra.bg, pointing out that what is happening is a classic example in which the demand exceeds the supply by many times.
“In this situation of shortage of the product in question, there are cases where resourceful individuals buy more units and offer them for sale at a premium, in many cases a significant one. In this way, the profit goes to speculators and not to the producer. But that’s how the free market works”, commented the founder of the online platform, Gabriela Rumenova.
The expert is categorical that in this case there is no violation of the law, since the trader and the consumer are not in a contractual relationship in which the former has committed to deliver to the latter exactly on a certain date and under certain parameters a pre-agreed product in fulfilling a subscription for a certain period, for example.
“There is no way the practice can be viewed as unfair from the point of view of consumer law, since neither traders benefit from it, nor does the consumer suffer economic damage due to the fault of the manufacturer or the retailer”, she concluded.
