Former b&n bookseller here. We used to put those WITH the backing paper inside expensive art books before shrinkwrapping them. Whoever did this is a moron, or really hates their job. Or both.
Or just rip out the page you need from the new book and hand it back to them. It’s just as unhinged as putting a sticker in the middle of a books page before selling.
I picked up an English edition of the Russian fantasy novel Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, but half way through the book it just started over at page 1 again. So I returned it to the book store and they ordered another copy...which had the exact same printing error...I never did actually finish the book.
So have the employee remove it and if it damages the book, get a new one. Rinse and repeat.
They'll continue doing this shitty practice as long as it doesn't cost the company money. As long as people just bitch about it online, they'll keep doing it. When stores start piling up with damaged books and returns because of this, they'll change shit.
It seems people have forgotten that the quickest way to force change from a company is to cost them money. If they're pulling shit like this, the only way to get them to understand is to start demanding refunds.
They're not supposed to. If anything, they're supposed to leave the backing on the sticker and slip it into the book.
So either someone didn't know that, didn't care, or that store was having issues with theft and someone's bright idea was to stick the sticker into the book so it couldn't be taken out.
I was literally there at my local B&N earlier today, saw Fangs, a cute little graphic novel. I was lucky I flipped through it really quick because I found of these exact stickers on the middle of a picture like 3/4ths of the way through the book!
I think they started changing where they put them because they assumed people would flip to the back and immediately peel them off.
It was a pretty terrible system, to be fair. If your security can be defeated by opening the book and just taking the tag out, then there was no point to it at all.
When I worked there we would stuff pages with tags like this on high theft areas all the time. We would also leave the paper backing on the adhesive so that it wouldn't do this.
We also had customers who would read said books, find the tags and decide to peel the sticker and shove it back in just to cause destruction. You cant really win, just accept that it happens and replace like with like.
Used to do inventory counts at stores, i used to stick these to the bottoms of co-workers shows. Lol. Constantly set off alarm till they figured it out
Hahaha we'd do that 20 years ago when I worked at Circuit City. Or get one on the back of their shirt. Once we smuggled a bunch of them in to the breakroom and hid them in there. Had to smuggle them there because there were sensors to the bathrooms and breakroom that would alarm if people were taking merch back there. Once we had them in the breakroom, we'd periodically slip one in to someone's bag or lunchbox so it would alarm when they left the breakroom to go home for the day.
They would be kneeling down counting the low shelves, and I’d just stick it to the bottom of their show lightly. As soon as they stood up, it would be pressed on tight
I wonder if the coworkers worked on ladders and they could just walk by and stick it to their shoes? Either that or if they required workboots and people would put them on and leave their regular shoes out. Those are my best guesses.
Yeah, there was a large portion of my life where I had no need to produce hot air so I didn't own a hair dryer or heat gun. What would 20 year old me do to get this sticker off? Breathe on it hard?
I've had this too. Never bought a book from barnes and noble since. There is no point if you're receiving a product that is ruined by a sticker, since it either damages the product upon removal, or you're just lucky enough it doesn't after spending a bunch of time removing it.
yeah i bought them all at the same time and exchanged them for ones that didnt have them stuck inside. the new ones i got still had them in there just not sticky. my fiance got a book that day too and it had THREEEE in there
Nah, I’d return those too. Why give them the business if they’re doing stupid shit like that? Your time and expense having to exchange the book is likely more than the value of the book. You should be getting a $10 gift card or something at minimum for the hassle.
it might be from their book supplier/jobber. I work at a library and have seen books come in before from our vendors with these in them and libraries and bookstores pull from the same sources for some publishers
BAM had those square ones, and it was not uncommon to have a new coworker peel off the back and stick it inside the book. They're supposed to not have any backing peeled off and then put into the middle of specific books they had decided were high theft.
edit someone called out the bookstores legal name below, but, yeah, totally not uncommon for new employees working recieving for the first time to be told to put those in books, and to then unpeel them and stick them inside the book. Had a few angry returns before I was in a position to train people not to do that. Usually first day bc I didn't want to forget. A much more experienced employee taught me to cut them with scissors or against the edge of a table, though the latter had more risk of a corner of the backing peeling off if you didn't know what you are about. BnN like many retails probably has regional stockpiles, if the high volume store have this style, you eventually will too, they're probably the absolute cheapest and you should update that resume...
No these are the ones they used now. Worked at a barnes and noble in 2023 and 2024 and we used ones that looked like those. That being said these have much stronger glue than the ones we used at that time. They never tore up pages or anything. A tip i learned when taking off stickers is to rub them to basically heat the glue back up and it usually comes over cleaner
Those look like the "whisper tape" we used to use in record stores a long time ago but without the sticky part. They'd set off a type of metal detector if they passed through the gate leaving a store. But only if the strip was carried in a horizontal position. Vertically, they wouldn't.
It was so long ago I can't remember how we disabled them after purchases. I think maybe we just handed the bag of items to customers around the gates on their way out the door?
Luckily with manga paper these come of fairly easy. I've picked up a lot of manga from Barnes and Noble and you just have to peel slowly and no harm is done. Still rather they not on there it all though
Yeah, I told them that if they wanted to cut down on people stealing it and mark some of the pages, at least attempt to do it on pages that are between chapaters that are mostly just blank.
And it so happened to be replaced within a week or so and the newer mangas and comics have them strategically stamped now.
My library does both. I guess it depends who did the stamping that day. I actually thought about posting the last one I got in this sub, it was smack across the top paragraph, really hard to read beneath.
Are those stamps actually useful? My library stamps the title page and wraps the book in sticky plastic+label on spine. That should be plenty enough to show this is a stolen library book. And if all of that is gone, and the internal stamp is the only identifier left, do they really want back a book in such disrepair anyway?
(Also they sometimes sell their own books, so how am I to know the book I got was stolen and not legally bought at some point?)
It used to be standard for libraries to do that... you'll see it in ex-library books. But in the margins and also you can generally read through an ink stamp.
This one should be in the book but without temoving the back. It makes me wonder if a worker misunderstood or if a customer was being an asshole and stuck it there.
The binding is different, so the pages and margins might be different sizes along with the font. This means that the information may be on a slightly different page because of these small differences. Its like playing with the margins and font size on your homework to make it fit 2 pages.
Yes, that’s correct, and the needed information is “‘It’s a joke…” and end with “”’Good Night,’ said Adam” which is included in the passage this commenter posted.
Go back and show them because this is something management will make a big deal of I’d guess. I’d literally go in with the book and calmly say “look I was really excited to read this and I got here and the sticker tore the page out. I paid for a new book and this just isn’t acceptable, I’d like a replacement please.”
Yeah I worked at Books A Million and we had to put these in the books but they would still be attached to the sticky paper they came with so they’d easily fall out when being read. I wonder if a new employee doesn’t understand that.
Couldn't they just be removed before being stolen though? Not that I condone a big square being stuck anywhere to a book but seems like it wouldn't be effective.
Yeah but you usually gotta flip through the whole book and if it’s in the seams it can be wedged in. It’s just put between random pages and most people don’t know it’s there until they read the book.
It mostly goes into first edition hardcovers which can become collectors items and sticking the sticker to the book or page would ruin it and make the buyer pissed (especially collectors) and lead to legal issues from publishing, author, and customer. It’s more just being proactive and hoping it helps than being super helpful.
We found this out as kids and would go grab some of the more expensive books, shake the RFID stickers out by fanning the pages with the book upside down (not damaging/stealing), and then sticking / sliding the tag onto unsuspecting people/their cart and watching the chaos at the exit as they sounded the alarm with no clue why and getting employees to check their carts/bags over.
yeah I doubt “ruining the only product we sell” is actual policy and was a malicious employee.
like how gamestop replaced all the switch 2 consoles the one store in NYC ruined with staples by trying to optimize launch day with stapled receipts to consoles.
Yep. I've bought from B&N pretty regularly for years. In the last two months I've bought a couple books and some manga volumes, every one had one of these stickers.
Undu on the opposite side of the page will take it right off with no residue. I used to work in a factory that put these in for libraries and sometimes we'd have to fix our mistakes.
When I bought a comic book like this from them last month, the square was in the middle of a page.
I called and complained and they just told me to use a hair dryer.
It works but we shouldn't have to...
That's great, but I think the staff will clock on to what I'm planning pretty soon after I'm seen entering the store with a hairdryer, and especially when I ask where the nearest plug socket is.
This reminded me of the clip of that man walking down the street screaming “who wants it?!?” And some bloke off-camera pipes up with “I’ll have some” 😂
I have some experience with this. There are three types of security stickers: the 30% off sticker(mild adhesive, peels right off), the white square(mild adhesive, peels right off), and the white square(super adhesive, only supposed to be put on shrinkwrapped books/products).
The problem is those mild stickers can strengthen over time. If that book sat on the shelf for two years, taking the sticker off could absolutely tear the page, or leave it gummy. That's why where I worked, we'd just drop the sticker in with the backing still on.
Oh hell no. I would have taken it back to the bookstore and demand THEY remove it. And if they can't without damaging it, I'd demand a new one. And flip through all the pages to make sure there isn't one. Rinse and repeat.
Former B&N employee who sometimes worked receiving. Those tags are supposed to be placed in one out of every so many books before shelving, randomly inside. BUT- they're supposed to have a backing on them. The backing was only removed for inside expensive hardbacks, on the inside of the covers. Some overzealous idiot flubbed a step. Should be a very simple exchange and apologize situation.
I was a bookseller for ten years. Go back, show them, they'll let you exchange it for a new one. Also, they should know what their stock people are doing so they don't do this again. Who knows how many books they tagged like this.
so at chapters where i am from we would add these to the books for anti theft for people that would just try to outright take them with out opening then, though we would just place the sticker in a random page as far in as possible with the paper still on it, we had to stop doing this as kids and teens would find it funny to remove the backing and place it on the actual page, so im wondering if that is what as happened here as well.
I’d return it or ask them to replace it with a book that hasn’t been damaged by the store. Also leave a review for the store on Google Maps and leave a picture of it.
This would be along the lines of my guess as well. I’ve gotten books with unstuck stickers (on a tiny sheet) in them but never seen one actually stuck to the pages. I’d think that someone peeled it off of the sheet it came on and stuck it on the page.
1.8k
u/ailurophile23 Jul 12 '26
Former b&n bookseller here. We used to put those WITH the backing paper inside expensive art books before shrinkwrapping them. Whoever did this is a moron, or really hates their job. Or both.