After being offered a refund of the difference between the new and used prices, Carden declined, wanting instead an explanation of why an apparently used book was being sold at a new price.
Student Stores Director John Jones and Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chancellor for auxiliary services, have offered a few possible reasons for such a fluke.
"It is possible that there could have been a mix-up at the publisher's factory," Elfland said. "Or it could have been that someone bought the book and returned it as a new book."
One more explanation is that Student Stores simply does not have the manpower to guarantee accurate pricing of every one of its books, Jones said.
"We have tens of thousands of books," he said. "It would take one person 10 or 15 minutes to go through each book, and, when you add it up, it would just take a huge number of people."
Jones said the matter was being blown out of proportion. He said such mix-ups are rare and that Student Stores already has a policy in place to deal with them.
But Carden believes the scenario is more common than Student Stores officials are letting on. "(When I discovered the error) I wanted an explanation," he said. "(Jones) made it seem to me like it was a one-time thing, but I found another book exactly like the first one with the same problem."
Carden claimed that he is not pushing the issue solely for personal reasons.
"I'm more concerned for the rest of the student population," he said. "There are students out there who are trying to be self-sufficient, and this is money they could be using for food."
