To be a bit annoyed about this

[imahappycamper]

I have just bought a secondhand book through Amazon and it has the previous owner's pencil marking still in it. Shouldn't he/she have rubbed them out before selling it?

Why can't you rub them out? The condition should have been made clear in the listing.

might do more harm than good to the book trying to rub out though?

YANBU if the book was described as in imaculate condition though!

depends on the condition described. If described as A1 - "as new" then yes. If just described as 'good second hand copy' then No.

As everyone said, depends on condition, also "quality" of notes - sometimes I've found the notes useful!

Depends - is it a note on page 5 saying 'she dies on page 152'?

I bought a book of amazon the other week which had a swansea library stamp in it and 20p written in pencil in the inside cover. I can only assume that someone had bought it from the library (I know our local one sometimes sells off old books) for 20p and sold it on amazon to me for £3. Bloody cheek I thought!!!

Not as bad as the alphabet book I bought that was missing B-G, courtesy of Swansea library......

It is a text book and no, so far the notes have been no help whatsoever. Just irritated that's all. I think I'm a bit anal about books. It also has several pages where the corner has been turned down and then straightened out. I can cope with that though as it doesn't obscure the text.
It is only my second attempt at buying secondhand books on the internet so I will know what to expect in future.

depends on how it was listed also on the price if you paid 1p + postage and condition "acceptable" dont think you can complain but obviously if they have listed it as very good you can just put a negative comment or email them and say, they might even just refund you for the sake of the feedback?

imahappycamper - have you tried Green Metropolis for secondhand books? Condition has to be pretty accurate - not used them yet as I have far too many books myself and need to offload them rather than buy.

I am very precious about books and only lend them to people I trust and even then I might not

YANBU but a couple of points to consider:-
1.Maybe the seller forgot that there were notes and just wanted rid of the book? 2.Maybe you need to lower your expectations of secondhand books a bit. I'm guessing you can't get the book new?

It does vary. Some books I've had have been immaculate. One text book looked as if it hadn't been used, even though it had a library stamp in it!

If it was a 1p book I wouldn't have been so bothered. It was a lot cheaper than it would have been new, but still not all that cheap.
I emailed them and they have offered me another book of a different title (also secondhand) to keep me quiet.

Sorry, as a gesture of goodwill.