Company: Policies

At William S. Hein & Co., Inc., we pride ourselves on providing excellent service to our customers. The following policies reflect our ongoing commitment to satisfying customer needs in the most efficient and effective manner possible. If you cannot find the answer to your questions or problems listed below, please contact us and we will be happy to clarify any issues or concerns that you may have.

Terms of Sale

All prices are in U.S. dollars net. Prices are subject to change without notice. New York, Colorado and GST taxes, where applicable, will be added. Shipping and handling charges are additional. In our catalog, we have indicated those titles that are most likely to vary because of currency fluctuations.

Purchases and Payment Options

If you have an existing Hein account number, simply refer to this number when placing your order. If you do not have an existing Hein account number and you are an institution, we can establish an account number for you. Please contact us for a credit application. We reserve the right to issue a pro-forma (prepay) invoice for any person or institution that does not have an established account with us. We also accept checks (in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank), money orders, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express and Electronic Funds Transfer. Please inquire for special discounts that may apply for pre-paid or bulk orders.

Shipping

All orders are shipped using a major carrier such as UPS, USPS, RPS, or FedEx, or by a major freight carrier. If you have a special shipping request, please tell us at the time of your order and we will be happy to accommodate your request. Rush delivery service is available at an additional cost.

Return Policy

All material being returned, with the exception of damaged material, must be returned in resalable and excellent condition. Also, a copy of the invoice, or a letter stating the reason for return and invoice number must accompany every return. Hein will not issue credit for books returned without proper paperwork. Returns will be accepted for defective books and shipment errors within 30 days of the date of receipt, but we will need to be notified before this material is returned. If a book is received damaged please keep the original box that the material was received in.

All microfiche is non-returnable/non-refundable.

Please email returns@wshein.com with any return questions you may have. William S Hein & Company has the right to refuse any returns that are not made in accordance with our returns policies as stated below.

 

Discounts

We offer a number of discount options. Please inquire for your specific discount request.

Review Copies for Classroom Adoption

Please send your request via fax on institution letterhead or via e-mail to the attention of the Sales & Marketing Department. You may review the book for 60 days. At that time, if you order the book for your class, you may keep the book free-of-charge. If you choose not to place an order, you may return the book to us or pay the amount on the invoice.

Reprint Permission Requests

Please send any permission requests to the attention of the Marketing Department. Please include as much information as possible, such as title, author, ISBN, journal title, article title, etc.

Hein Claim Policy

In general, claims (whether for Hein material or material for which you are using the Hein Company as your agent) may be sent by mail, fax, phone or e-transfer. Claims of a general nature are entered into our system for transmission in bulk to the publisher. However, for any claim to which you need an immediate response to fulfill a library service, or that is a continuous, serious problem, we will contact the publisher directly by phone until it can be resolved and we can inform you of the outcome.

As a general rule, it is critical to claim as early as possible, especially for serial items such as dailies and weeklies, when the publisher may honor a claim only for a two- or three-week period. It is always helpful if you can provide us as much information as possible, including a volume/issue number or supplement number, and the date or period covered. This allows us to provide the correct information to the publisher and avoid unnecessary delays in getting the right material to your library.

The Hein Company policy for claims and returns is more liberal than most publishers' policies. We usually allow 90 to 120 days to return material, and as a general rule, we're able to honor claims for up to four months after publication for both single orders and continuation/subscription items. However, as your agent we are limited by the policy of the individual publishers. In other words, as your agent we pay on your behalf and claim on your behalf, but we have no control over the publisher's response to your claim. Of course, if at any time, we have mishandled your claim, causing it not to be honored, we will replace that item at our expense.

Again, claims should be made as early as possible, and immediately after receipt of the next issue. Many library systems also allow you to claim based on expected publishing dates; however, please do not set those too early, as too many computer-generated claims for not-yet-published material can cause publishers to be less responsive than they otherwise would be.

When claiming, we ask the publisher to confirm that the replacement has been sent to your library. Once we receive that confirmation, we complete your claim in our system, assuming that the material will soon be in your hands. If we do not hear from the publisher, we send you a follow-up on a monthly basis to see if you have received the claimed material. Please look for those monthly update letters and return them promptly so we can avoid double claiming the material and having duplicates sent to you.

From time to time, despite our best efforts, some claims are not honored by the publisher, meaning that the publisher will not replace the material at no charge and instead advises that the subscriber repurchase the material. Because we are the distributor of back issues for many periodicals, if the publisher refuses to honor a claim and we have stock of the missing issue, we will send it from our own inventory at our expense. This service is not available through any other subscription agent.

In rare cases, even when the library has claimed promptly and we have notified the publisher right away, the claim isn't timely as far as the publisher is concerned. In those cases, and only as a last resort when we don't have the material in our inventory, do we let you know that you'll have to pay for the replacement issue. We understand that, in these times of tight budgets, it is upsetting to pay a second time to get the material for the first time; however, we cannot control the policies of other publishers-as your agent, we can only communicate them to you. We do fight on your behalf and take your complaints back to the publisher, but as the middleman we do not have the ultimate authority to grant your requests. We appreciate your understanding regarding our role as your agent.

Finally, on a regular basis we put out notices regarding delays and other important information on frequency changes, title changes, and problems in the publishing industry. If you are not part of our regular listserv, or would like other librarians on your staff to be added to it, please visit http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/hein-customer-service to subscribe.

It is our hope that, in helping you learn more about our processes, we'll be better able to work together to fulfill your library's needs. We thank you for your understanding, and very much appreciate your business.

Thank you for visiting our site, and we look forward to being of service to you.

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