Packt Reviews 178

I'm not sure I understand the online sales order issues - I've gotten the print books I ordered in a timely manner and the e-books right away. It's true that not all books are written by native English-speakers and sometimes that shows, but I haven't had a hard time following the content. Maybe previewing and checking sample pages of the individual books is a good idea before buying. Publishers have used "bundle deals" forever to move books that otherwise haven't been selling - that's not a Packt thing. To each their own, I've been happy.

Long story short:

I bought eBooks for 75€, each eBook amounting to around 5€. Thankfully I could (can, for most of them) access and download them after purchase. The editorial quality is so-so (meaning spacing and formatting, fonts, symbol errors, etc.)

Yesterday I got an email telling me that one of the books was taken down by Packt, without stating any reason, but that doesn't matter too much.

I told them... "well, I guess I'll get my money back for that eBook". Short answer: "no, you could've already downloaded it". My thoughts: "and what if I did? I paid for it!?!?"

So take this into account. In the situation that ALL or most of them would be taken down by Packt for whatever reason, you would be left without books AND without your money. Stay away from Packt Publishing.

Do not buy . a book from these people. My students tell me their ordering system does not work. Their website does not give you the rights you paid for. (makes you pay again

As a professor of Computer Science its taken me over three weeks, many emails to get desk copies. They just send me "read the faqs" and open an account form when I already have an account but it wont let me read the books to review to decide if I should order them.

They dont care that I could have 60+ students ordering their books each year. Read the faqs is how they respond.

The Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification Guide book, 2019 edition, is a mess. Way too many errors with the code examples. It looks as though the reviewers didn't do what they were supposed to do. Same goes for the writers. This makes the book hardly usable.

The ordering system is not working— it acts like an ancient poorly designed system. Customer service is useless. Just a poorly managed company.

---UPDATE---
it took 7 days and 3 emails from my side to get my book.
Customer service solved the issue.

unfortunatelly i should have read the ratings BEFORE buying from packt.
I purchased a book, no orders shown, not downloadable files and opened a case 3 days now and no response.

Bought an ebook on the Packt website, 2 days later still don't have access to it and cannot download it.
Multiple emails to customer service but have not had one reply.

Update:
Just got an update and have my book finally. I don't think they intend any malice, but their payment/ordering systems needs fixing.

There are some good books on here, so I sincerely hope they fix the bugs and do the authors some justice.

I bought a book from them some time in September. Said book was supposed to be release in February, but it got cancelled by Packt so they dont offer it any longer. 3 weeks ago (or a little bit more) i receive email about the cancellation. In the email they never mention anything about a refund or some kind of reimbursement, so I email them to ask. The response is that I should wait up to 15 working days and I will be refunded. 15 working days have passed and I have no transactions proving they refunded me!!! Thank you for robbing me Packt, so nice of you!! Is that how you make money??? I wish I had read reviews before I order from them and had gone to Amazon instead!!!

Same situation: bought books - only part from them are available. WhiskyTangoFoxtrot?!!!
I'm waiting already 3 day - no response.

PAC-19-0-1200030529

I bought 3 articles (1 e-book and 2 video courses) at the 25$ Black Friday sale. Only received access to the video courses. However, I need the e-book urgently for an assignment at university.

When some company receives money for a digital product, I expect to get immediate access to the bought content. I feel robbed and will certainly never buy a book on packtpub again after this experience.

[Update]
After 5 days they have fixed it. So, I will raise it to 2 stars. But such an error shouldn't happen in the first place.

I bout a e-book from packtpub and after 48 h i still cannot access them in my account.

I had sent a e-mail to customer support, and in the last 40 h i got no response from them. I have no idea what is the issuer there, but seems like i got robbed.

UPDATE:
Customer support is nice, they fixed my issue after geetin in touch with me, hence giving 3 starts.

I bought 2 ebooks from Packt but they are not available even after 24 hours. I prefer ebooks because I don't need to wait for printed books to arrive.
Although I tried to contact support I have not gain their attention. I would at least expect a typical response from the customer support service that they acknowledge the problem and give a time frame for resolving it.
Very sad and dissapointing.

I bought 3 e-books on their website +/- 24 hours ago and I still haven't received them.

I sent requests to support to ask for a solution but I'm still waiting for a first reply.

Edit:
Just received some feedback and the book are now available. I can't judge the quality of the content yet but at least they did fix the delivery issue.

As a consequence, updated the 1-star rating to 3-star.

I bought 5 ebooks in their online shop and only received 2 after successfully completing & paying the order via PayPal.
Never experienced something like that with any other publisher when buying ebooks.
Contacted their customer support via email & waiting for an answer / solution....

Update: Finally received a response from them now. They resolved the problem & provided the 3 missing ebooks. Review therefore upped to 3 stars.

So far, my experience with Packt books has been great. Customer service has been very responsive and helpful. Some improvements to their website could take them to the next level, such as providing a warning when a customer buys the same title twice, a mistake I made but was corrected with the help of customer service. Cheers.

Extremely poor quality books full of spelling mistakes, tenuous english grammar and plagiarized code from github without attribution.

Written I suspect by the same "experts" heavily seen on Quora and to an extent Medium.

Avoid like the plague.

Paperback quality so bad I removed the cover. I've never seen a company allowing such bad covers and then not helping customers get a replacement. Avoid the headache and just make a point not to buy paperback books from Packt. Out of my last 3 computer programming books from Packt, two had unfinished defective covers leaving the ink to be exposed to your skin and anything else they come in contact with. Customer service does reply but has a policy not to help if purchased through USA "Amazon.com Services, Inc" or third parties. Also, these books appear to skip the editing phase... just pay anyone to write a quick book and get some quick money by being a middle man.

I'm reading books on Kindle, and so far Packtpub has the best editing. Amazon and other competitors barely convert their PDFs to epub, which has a poor rendered result in most cases.

The subjects are good and the content is very nice. Albeit with a little bit more depth and less work-centered subjects i'd be even happier.

UPDATE: Toby Knight of Packt Customer Relations contacted me, explained what happened, apologized for their initial customer service response, and has issued a full refund. He was very understanding, thorough in his response, and even offered a year's free subscription.

It's unfortunate it required going to TrustPilot to escalate the issue. But very glad Toby saw this, and was able to help.

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I purchased a Mapt/Packt subscription last year - decent material which I used for a bit before needing to cancel. I'd completely forgot about it - and after checking my credit card statement a couple months later, noticed I was still getting charged. Initially, I thought I'd screwed up and never canceled - but upon going to the site, could confirm I had no active subscription. I checked the billing history, and it just states no active subscriptions.

I emailed support & they claim that yes I canceled - and yes I haven't had access for months, but some "Future recurring payment" gets setup when you subscribe. Cancelling the subscription only cancels your access and not the payments - which you will have to manually disable in a 3rd party site. Furthermore, there is no indication on Packt that you are still being billed. Their support team is refusing to consider a refund - which is now sizable amount after the few months of continued billing.

Just another fun fact - the FAQ actually quotes in the how-to-cancel section: "just click 'Pause' and you will not be billed further"... The email response from customer service acknowledges I paused, then goes onto admit I was billed further - but not their fault.

Do yourself a solid and avoid them.

Packt doesn't even deserve a star in review. It's the worst online purchase experience I ever had. I bought 4 ebooks on 20 July 2019, and until now(24 july) I still get nothing at all. I feel cheated. The customer service sucks, they took a long time to get back to me. How I wish I read the reviews before I bought the books.
Really furious about their service.