Okay, in debate between book readers, I am on the side of the Nook vs. the Kindle or anything else. Which means I like Barnes and Noble and want to make sure they stay around to keep supporting my Nook.
So when it came time to buy the Pixie for Hire books from author Cedar Sanderson, I wanted to buy them from BN.
Which is where I ran into a problem. I wanted to buy them online using more than one debit card. I also wanted to buy all my books at once. There didn’t seem to be any way to do this online, so I initiated the below chat.
You are now connected with Dino from BN.com
Betsy: I am trying to buy a nook book by using debit gift cards I have received, not my default credit card. I need to use two cards because of their remaining balances. I cannot find a way to do so, or to put all my books I want to purchase into by shopping bag and buy them all at once instead of buying each individually.
Dino: Thank you for joining Barnes & Noble Chat. My name is Dino.
Betsy: greetings Dino
Dino: I do understand that you want to use the least amount of gift cards saved in your account, right?
Betsy: no, I do not want to use gift cards saved into the account. I have generic debit Visa cards that I want to use
Dino: Oh I’m sorry. You can only use this gift cards when you save it in your account, if this is for ebook orders. If this is for physical item order, you need to enter the gift card number on the check out page to be able to redeem the least credits left in your card.
Dino: For ebooks, you can only buy them individually.
When he told me I could only buy them individually I went ahead and purchased one of the books, and then started trying to purchase the second.
Betsy: so can I use a debit card to purchase a book, even if the book price exceeds the balance of the card, will it ask me for another card to complete the purchase?
Dino: Yes, that is correct!
Betsy: so how do a make a payment for a nook book that isn’t from the default payment method but one of the alternate methods?
Dino: I’m sorry, Betsy. Would you like to use VISA your gift cards for the payment of your orders rather than using your credit card?
Betsy: I have added my debit cards as payment methods. I have set the card I wanted to charge as my default.
Dino: Let me check on the account first. Will that be fine?
Betsy: I just purchased one of the books I wanted to purchase
Betsy: but now it only has $1.11 left on it. What happens when I try to purchase another $4.99 book?
Dino: One moment, please.
Dino: Thank you for waiting, Betsy.
Dino: Is the last four digits of your VISA gift card was 6884?
Betsy: 8975
Betsy: has $1.11 left on it
Dino: It is the default payment card now on your account. Did you already bought the book for $4.99?
Betsy: yes, as I said, I bought one book for $4.99 and am trying to buy the second
Betsy: I need to be able to use the $1.11 left on 8975
Betsy: as part of the payment
Dino: I’m very sorry for the confusion about the payment using your VISA gift card. Your next purchase will not push through and you must use an active and has enough balance credit card so that the order will be process.
Betsy: so if I have two cards that net to enough money for the purchase, but not enough on either, I cannot buy the book through BN but have to go to another bookseller?
Dino: The order will not be process when your payment card has insufficient balance to cover the amount of your order.
Betsy: and there is no way to work around this?
Betsy: you have someone that wants to spend money with you and you say they cannot spend their money with you?
Dino: Like what I have mentioned before, you can use the balance left on your VISA gift card to any physical item orders.
Betsy: but I don’t want to buy any physical item orders.
Betsy: I want to buy that e-book. Are you recommending that I go elsewhere that can process this transaction for me?
Dino: We value you as one of our customer. We do apologize for the inconvenience but as much as we would like to process it for you, but this will only be processed when there is a credit card that has enough balance that can cover the amount of your order.
At this stage I looked up their phone number and called someone on the customer service phone line. I explained again what I was trying to do, figuring someone on a phone might be able to make the manual intervention that an online chat person couldn’t. This person on the phone came up with the same responses, and added an additional suggestion, that I could ask my bank to combine the cards. To which I replied that my cards aren’t with the same bank, and you want be to do something like ask JP Morgan and BOA, two separate banks, to combine their card into one card for your convenience? You mean you can’t do for me what a simple checkout clerk at Wal-Mart can do, take two forms of payment for the same transaction?
That got me nowhere, so I asked for a supervisor, who was just as locked into the same box of options. So I ended the conversation.
And looked up the number for my local Brick and Mortar BN store. I called them, and got a nice lady whose name began with a J (wish I could remember the name). She listened carefully and said that they could do it at the store.
About the time I got done with her I got the below message.
Dino: Are you still there?
I started typing a reply, but before I could hit enter, I got the below:
Dino: I’m sorry, but since you are no longer responding, I’m going to have to disconnect from this session. If you do have any other concerns though, please don’t hesitate to contact us again. Thank you once again for joining Barnes and Noble Chat Support. Have a nice evening
So the next day I went over to the store at Zona Rosa. I talked to a nice clerk at the check out, who realized she wasn’t sure how to do it, but called someone from Customer Service over to the Nook desk. I explained what I wanted to do at the Nook desk, and Andrew took me over to customer service, looked up the information he needed, and then took me over to checkout where he ran my purchase through the register on my two cards.
I ended up with a receipt with a code that I had to go home, login to my account and redeem the load tho book to my account. But I did what I wanted to do.
All it took was a little creativity. Either the phone person or the chat person should have been able to offer me these options. I can understand limits, but to not be able to think outside the box of your methods to consider all legitimate options, especially when suggested to you, is poor customer service.
Point: I was not impressed with the online customer service or phone line customer service.
Point: I was very impressed with my brick and mortar BN staff.
It is great to be able to do things easily online, but sometimes you need someone local and in person.
At The Rainbow 