Is vitalsource.com Legit?

I purchased a non-expiring 'Psychology of Learning for Instruction' online book via Vital Source for $44. Once I paid for the book I was given an access code and directed to the Pearson+ website. There I found the online book was for 4 months. To top it all of the access code did not work. I opened a support ticket and was unable to get assistance before my class started. I had to spend more money to quickly order a hardcover book via Amazon. I got it just in time for my class. My experience with Vital Source was awful. I wasted $44 and was almost without a book for my Graduate Level class. Their website also does not allow you to leave poor reviews.

I loved how I could interact with the content it helped with my notes and allowed me to study - amazing for my course work. Any course book I have if its available here - Im definitely gonna get it.

Website loading a page every 5 minutes today. Assignment due tomorrow at midnight and I am completely SOL. Do not use. Unreliable.

I just can't understand how such an app, which is intended for reading non-fiction and professional books, can be that bad. Alignments are horrible, the choice of fonts is extremely frustrating, you can't download books on more than 2 devices (in 2024!!), the "paginated" view has more bugs than an app from 10 years ago. This is just shameful and subpar.

Its such a pain using vital source bookshelf. I have such a poor experience that I interrupted 'my studies to rant at how much I hate using it. No thought went into the creation of the website or app. I need features that allow me to work on my terms. 1) please allow me to adjust my zoom. Neither the computer app or website allow you to adjust the zoom. I need to resize my browser and crop the page using the bookmarks column. 2) Can you please, please add a scroll feature. I don't want to click the button to get to the next page. It is unnatural and hinders my learning experience. Neither the website or app allows one to active a scroll feature3) I would like to scratch in my book how I please. Give me a pen or type function.

worst website and app ever!I paid €60 for a textbook from Routledge only to be forced to use this garbage app to access it! it somehow took over my system bringing me back to Chrome automatically when I swiped between screens and blocking all my other apps that were open. for example, I couldn't type on Pages anymore!! Also, ever since I opened their garbage bookshelf my Macbook has been making this sound that it makes when it's overworking, and even though I deleted the app and restarted my Mac, the sound hasn't stopped yet. I'm shocked by the sheer incompetency and greed of both Routledge and Vitalsource forcing me to waste so much of my precious time struggling with their garbage software rather than studying. Do not, under any circumstance, make the mistake of buying e-books from Routledge.

You can only use the books within their "bookshelf", you can't export in any way and the reader only let you see 1 page at a time and has to load the next page when you turn a page. You should be able to export it in ePub so you can use a better reader, but then they can't force users to stay on their platform.

I purchased 2 books from this company. After a few weeks of using, when I opened one of the books, I received a prompt to download an updated version. After doing this, 3 of the books chapters disappeared. I contacted the company over the course of one week and each time received a reply ‘We are dealing with your request’. To date, I have not had a solution. Definitely would not recommend. I am a Masters student and need the book for assessment. Totally unreliable.

Very poor customer service. I am a faculty member and changes institutions. They refused to update my account to reflect my new work email. They gave me no solutions other than, sorry we can't do that. Totally unacceptable and horrible customer service.

Don't use Vital Source -You paid full price for the book -like you own the textbookVital Source does not allow you to download your textbook if forgotten regardless if there was a pandemic or any crisis. I purchased a textbook in 2021 and I forgot to download it. I requested they allow me to download the book. Also, you have to again buy storage to store the textbook. They tried to differentiate their services, but they cannot overcome these challenges. They are taking advantage of their customers. They should provide a refund or allow customers to download their textbooks free of charge

Asks to verify email, does not send for like 10 minutes when im just trying to do my homework from a textbook i paid 80 dollars for. You guys are ridiculous, why am I verifying email for a book, who tf wants info to a book.

constant freezing and trouble loading. can barely use. absolute horrible waste of money. Need these books for school. Offered through my university but just a gross waste of money. Constant error messages saying the page is unresponsive just when trying to read through the chapter. terrible terrible terrible. It's been 2 years. I've reported so many times and they keep saying they are working on it. Refuse to give money back.

I purchased an e textbook that said I'd get access through vital source reading bookshelf app. After purchasing it I couldn't get the access code to work and after a convoluted conversation with support I learned it had to be redeemed on the publishers website. Had issues with the publisher and learned that my instructor needed to create a course and send me a link for access before I'd be able to access the course but my instructor doesn't use that publishers platform. All this to say there's no way I can get access to the ebook I purchased and vital source never told me there were conditions on the access or gave me a refund. Really bad setup overall where I was not informed of the conditions of access before I purchased the book. Lost $50 to this site. Please be careful to know the conditions before you buy from them!

I would give a negative star. Total scam. I paid $40.00 to rent an etext. Well it was an access code for Pearson which required an additional $60.00 to access, the access code. Shame on VitalSource and Pearson. Just advertise the true cost instead of the bait and switch!To be fair, I have to include, the customer service team issued a refund after I complained.

The software updated and this meant I could not read my textbook which I paid $120 for. The update happened in the middle of exams when I most needed the book. I contacted the company and they refused to refund me or even email me a pdf of the book so I could at least complete my exams. Furthermore, when I could actually access the book it lagged horribly and the search function did not work at all.I Could not recommend against strongly enough. I paid top dollar for a product which I suddenly couldnt use, during a critical period of my study and they could not have been any less concerned with helping me. This company is everything that's wrong with big businesses these days, they simply don't care.

Poor customer service. e-Textbook does not scroll through entire chapter. Have to click each section one at a time. Tech support is horrendous. All they can tell me is it's working on their side. Well obviously isn't working on my side. One book did work and then stop scolling. No one wants to reach out and figure out why not working. In the meantime, I have to click through each section of a chapter. This has been going on since the day I purchased the first textbook and it's a week later.

Software MalfunctionsThe more you use the software's features, such as highlighting and cue cards, the more it begins to glitch and eventually becomes dysfunctional. Customer support states "It is a known issue" and has no fix. Their recommendation was to "delete highlighting" and be "more judicious" with its use. As such, I am being very judicious and never using it again.

The website is not user-friendly at all, very slow and cumbersome to scroll through workbooks, doesn't even offer the basic function of showing 2 pages at once like most other services which makes using it for question practice extremely painful having to flick back and forth between pages. Wish I had never purchased the workbook through the website as it feels like everything takes twice as long.

I was recently asked to review an academic book for a journal. It was delivered using this vital source platform. I have tried to get it to work for two months, and today reported to the journal that for the first time in thirty years I would fail to complete a review.Frankly I cannot find a good word to say about this platform; it's a nightmare to get on, and a nightmare to use. It's horribly slow, counter-intuitive, hard to navigate, hard to use... has no useful functions and lots of bells and whistles of no use whatsoever. Today, after failing to get on altogether on one device due to a malfunctioning captcha, I got the book on another... to find that the pages were reduced to a window like a stamp in the corner. When I tried to change this the text turned yellow. that was the last straw. If I had paid money for this experience I would be livid. As it is I'm just furious.

I've been using Vitalsource since I discovered it in 2019. I was tired of carrying around textbooks and at the time most eBooks were still on Adobe's Digital Editions software, which was a very barebones reader more concerned with DRM protection than offering an actual reading experience, to put it nicely.When I mention Vitalsource, I'm referring to two things: 1. The eBook store, and 2. the Bookshelf app that they author.The Store--SelectionThe VitalSource store has a good selection of textbooks. Most books you'd need for school (or supplemental learning) on mathematics, physics, and computer science authored within the last 10 years are there. --Purchases and RefundsPurchases and access are easy. Most books have both rental and lifetime purchase options. The options seem to be dictated by the publisher, so every once in a while a books is rental only or lifetime only. Everything is laid out on the product page and I've never run into any errors. Prices are competitive with Amazon and other retailers. Refunds seem to be automated, so as long as you haven't already read more than 20% of the book, haven't returned the same book in the past, and haven't already returned 3 books in the last 90 days, you can expect a quick refund. Sometimes books from certain publishers or delivered by the publisher cannot be refunded. This is all detailed in the return policy.The Bookshelf app--Features and PerformanceThe Bookshelf app's feature set has stagnated in recent years, and I stumbled on this page because I was looking for a way to report feedback on how highlighted notes should have better UI, but the desktop and web apps are good and by a country mile the best DRM reader out there. It's even better than the Kindle app - step up your game, Amazon.As with everything else in life, there are some weaknesses. The desktop app is a memory hog. This might have to do with existing DRM protection implementations, but if not, performance in this aspect can be improved, and may be the reason users with lower end hardware face issues.ConclusionVitalsource has a great marketplace and offers the best DRM reading app available today. They're not perfect, and the app has weaknesses that regular PDF apps like Adobe Acrobat or Readdle's PDF Expert don't have, but it has more than enough features and is stable enough to rely on for daily use. Well worth checking out if you prefer eBooks over paper copies.

“Great service”

Fast and reliable service and instructions on how to install are right on point. Will recommend them to anyone that needs parts for their dryer.