The tale behind our problems and issues with a defective Barnes & Noble's Nook eBook reader, and the deceptive customer service that only made it worse.
As much as we would like to, as journalists, we don’t always get to experience things as customers do. When we do have a notable customer service experience, we would like to share it with you.
We wrangled our Barnes & Noble Nook the old-fashioned way. No PR reps, no loaners, no overnight shipment. In the interest of having one around the office, we preordered the Nook months ago alongside every other customer, waited our turn, and eagerly tore open the box last week when it arrived.
To a totally white “color” screen. We had a dud on our hands.
After confirming that we weren’t missing any steps, we dialed up 1-800-THE-BOOK, got a customer representative on the line, and explained the situation. No big deal, he told us. Our Nook was defective. He assured us that a replacement Nook would leave that very day via two-day air, and we could send back the old unit when we got it.
Days passed. Almost a week passed. And no Nook. After 30 minutes on hold with the same number today, we told a customer service representative we hadn’t received our replacement. Not surprising, he told us, because there was no note of two-day air service in our return request, and the soonest we would receive a replacement would be February.
So we might have a chance to give it as a Valentine’s Day gift? Might?
All replacements were now treated as new orders, he said, because Barnes & Noble had burned through its entire stock of replacements from the first batch of Nooks and now had none to send out.
Really? Our previous customer service rep had completely lied to us and we would have been waiting week after week for a Nook that would have arrived in months? We broke cover and told them we were reviewing it. It would be useless by February. We needed one now or never.
After a couple more times on hold and consulting some superiors, they magically stumbled upon some more Nooks and sent one out via expedited mail. (Or so they said, this could easily be the third lie we’ve swallowed.)
This entire experience is unacceptable.
Defective Nook owners (and we have to assume there are plenty, if they already depleted all their replacement stock) are now waiting until February for an item they preordered months in advance. Giving it as a Christmas gift? Whoops. Better find a Zhu Zhu.
And to top it all off, we were lied to twice over the phone by Barnes & Noble: Once when they told us a replacement was on the way immediately, and again when they told us there were no more replacements to send out.
We’ll save our judgment for the actual device until it arrives… if it ever does. Until then, you can decide for yourself whether a company that treats customers the way we’ve witnessed deserves your business.
Showing 63 comments
RSSI noticed B&N doesn't have the option for "Customer reviews" on the nook. I looked at a few other items, they all had the "Customer review" option. I think this says more than anything I have read here. They don't appear to want customer reviews...... Interesting.
My main problem is waking it up. I've noticed it starts acting up when I reach about 1/2 charge on the battery. For the last couple of days I've kept it fully charged at all times and it hasn't happened again as of yet, so we'll see what happens.
When it works, it's great, but this freezing up issue is really starting get extremely frustrating.
I am very, very disappointed in B&N as I thought they would have provided much better "service" for a new product that evidentially is disappointing a lot of people. I have insisted that they not charge me a reshelving fee as the product was misrepresented to me and I have gone to a lot of trouble and expense to get them to sit up and take notice and "assist". Of course, that remains to be seen as to what happens once they get the Nook in their hands.
I am not happy with the product and it is something I could really do in a country with no bookstores! I love to read and spend a lot of money on books and this would have been a wonderful device!
I am not happy with their responses, their representatives or their service and am surprised that they will not help me......after all it is money I'm talking about and sending business their way!
Will not register
Got one of the first nooks for my wife. We are not in an area with 3g, so I set it up for access through our home wifi which is secured and it registered without issue and works fine.
She ordered one for my birthday and it came a couple of days ago. Set it up the same way and it would not register. I could get the daily, I could see the best sellers and newspapers, but it would not register.
Called support and they suggested using an unprotected network. I set up an unprotected network and got the new nook connected, it still would not register. It would still show me all the things for sale, but would not register.
Called support again and they told me it was considered a manufacturer defect and would be supported under warranty. Told me they could send me out a new one. Told me that the ones that they had sent out as replacements had been fine, that they came from a different supply from the ones that were shipping out to customers from pre-order. They suggested perhaps a hard reset on the nook might work. They gave me instructions on how to perform the hard reset on the nook which forces it to reload the software from the ground up. I performed it, it reloaded, it connected to the unsecured network, still showed all the lists, but refused to register.
Called support again. Apparently, I did not have a default credit card assigned to my account. The rep felt certain this was the issue. It sounded reasonable, so I set a default card and tried again over the unsecured network. It still would not register. I agreed to wait a while to make sure everything had a chance to update. I waited an hour and tried again, still no registration.
Called support again. The offer of the replacement that I had received earlier was retracted. I was informed that this is a known issue and that they are working on a fix. I was told that they had actually sent engineers to peoples homes to troubleshoot the issue and try to get these nooks to register. I was told that if they sent me a replacement that it would have the same issue and not resolve my problem. I explained that I have one in the house that works and that this one must be defective. They insisted that it was a software issue and would be resolved by the end of the month. They assured me that they had extended out the normal return policy of 14 days to the end of January for customers that received theirs in December and have this issue. They clearly did not want me to return the unit even though it is clearly defective. They finally offered to send a replacement but made such a point of saying that it was a waste of time, I decided to wait a little longer.
I waited overnight and tried it again this morning, it will connect to the wireless network and show me the lists, but it will not register. I tried it again at lunch and it would not register. I tried it again after work and it still will not register. Surely this is sufficient time for the default credit card to have updated in the system, so this was clearly not the issue.
I have searched for recent threads on this issue, but most of the ones I have found are from late December.
Is anyone else having this issue with the nook?
Is there anyone that has had an engineer from B&N come to their home to troubleshoot this issue?
Has anyone received a fix for this issue?
Will not register
Got one of the first nooks for my wife. We are not in an area with 3g, so I set it up for access through our home wifi which is secured and it registered without issue and works fine.
She ordered one for my birthday and it came a couple of days ago. Set it up the same way and it would not register. I could get the daily, I could see the best sellers and newspapers, but it would not register.
Called support and they suggested using an unprotected network. I set up an unprotected network and got the new nook connected, it still would not register. It would still show me all the things for sale, but would not register.
Called support again and they told me it was considered a manufacturer defect and would be supported under warranty. Told me they could send me out a new one. Told me that the ones that they had sent out as replacements had been fine, that they came from a different supply from the ones that were shipping out to customers from pre-order. They suggested perhaps a hard reset on the nook might work. They gave me instructions on how to perform the hard reset on the nook which forces it to reload the software from the ground up. I performed it, it reloaded, it connected to the unsecured network, still showed all the lists, but refused to register.
Called support again. Apparently, I did not have a default credit card assigned to my account. The rep felt certain this was the issue. It sounded reasonable, so I set a default card and tried again over the unsecured network. It still would not register. I agreed to wait a while to make sure everything had a chance to update. I waited an hour and tried again, still no registration.
Called support again. The offer of the replacement that I had received earlier was retracted. I was informed that this is a known issue and that they are working on a fix. I was told that they had actually sent engineers to peoples homes to troubleshoot the issue and try to get these nooks to register. I was told that if they sent me a replacement that it would have the same issue and not resolve my problem. I explained that I have one in the house that works and that this one must be defective. They insisted that it was a software issue and would be resolved by the end of the month. They assured me that they had extended out the normal return policy of 14 days to the end of January for customers that received theirs in December and have this issue. They clearly did not want me to return the unit even though it is clearly defective. They finally offered to send a replacement but made such a point of saying that it was a waste of time, I decided to wait a little longer.
I waited overnight and tried it again this morning, it will connect to the wireless network and show me the lists, but it will not register. I tried it again at lunch and it would not register. I tried it again after work and it still will not register. Surely this is sufficient time for the default credit card to have updated in the system, so this was clearly not the issue.
I have searched for recent threads on this issue, but most of the ones I have found are from late December.
Is anyone else having this issue with the nook?
Is there anyone that has had an engineer from B&N come to their home to troubleshoot this issue?
Has anyone received a fix for this issue?
This was my lesson and I was cautioned by another geek: NEVER BUY FIRST GENERATION ANYTHING. THEY GENERALLY SUCK!! This is definitely true with the nook. Too many people are having issues with the device. Barnes & Noble was not and still IS NOT prepared to handle the support calls. The one bright spot was the technician I got when I finally got through. He was apologizing profusely and said he really hated that I was so disappointed. He advised me to walk it back into the store near my house and get the charge on my credit card refunded because after he walked me through checking it out he agreed my nook was defective.
Bottom line? I am buying a Kindle 2!
oh no, they hadn't changed it. Instead there was a big red box at the top of the page that said if I didn't click the link below which stated I still wanted this item within 24 hours they would cancel the order. So, I decided to click it and just wait a few more days. But! I was extremely upset at the shiftiness of Barnes and Noble when they did NOT, I repeat did NOT send us an email telling us we needed to do this. Had we not happened to check the page that day our original order would have been lost. Apparently there were quite a few people this happened to. One person hit the "I still want this" and it canceled his order. CS informed him basically "too bad, you have to reorder". Wow!d
My kindle should be here any minute. I ordered it Sunday night at 8PM Central time. They offered me 2 day delivery but I opted to pay for 1 day because I wanted to make sure it was here for Christmas.
We've spent 10s of thousands of dollars at B&N. I don't think that will be happening anymore. I am so absolutely disappointed in this company.
Maybe the Nook 2 launch will go better for you guys. Best of luck.
Hans
Bad move for B&N.