Gift Card Problem!!

[AngeDeMusiquex]

A few days ago I bought ebooks for my nook using gift cards I have on my account. Yet even after 3 days of having of bought the books, it still tells me my gift card balance is the same as what I started with.

I was able to download the books, so they were paid for somehow. And I currently don't have access to the default credit card. So how come my giftcard balance hasn't changed?

[JudyInTexas]

I'm having the same issue; but, unlike Rhetorical, my credit card isn't getting charged either.  A few of the books have been debited from the gift card; but, most have not.  I'm keeping a manual running tab of all the books I bought with my gift card.  Odd.  You'd think B&N would want to keep their accounting books as straight as their book shelves.

[sabersoul]

Mine is similar, but I used a Visa Gift Card instead of a BN gift card and I can't download my books.  The nook says there may be a problem with payment, my Droid Incredible says it can't download the license and my PC says that it can't download the book and to call customer support.  They're saying that they can't find the order in their primary system even 24 hours later citing a backlog of orders moving from one system to the other due to the holidays.  As an IT administrator, this delay is unacceptable.  If I had to tell my users that they'd have to wait a day or more to access their data off my servers I'd be out of a job.  On top of this, they told me that their IT dept. is out until Tuesday because of New Year's.  That's even worse.  Yes, New Year's Day falls on a Saturday, I can see giving them today off because that's how most things go when there's a holiday on a Saturday, you treat the Friday before as the holiday.  But telling me that even after 24 hours, my order hasn't been processed and that no one will be there to fix it for another 72 hours???  That's rediculous...

[AngeDeMusiquex]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

Sabersoul, I know what you mean. I've emailed customer service a couple of times, and called there a couple of times too. The first time I called they told me they don't know what the problem is and they can't help me. The second time I called I was on hold for an hour, only to have someone tell me they're experincing a backlog of calls and to try again later.

And I have been keeping a log of it now. It seems like the only soultion as of right now. But before I did that, I actually deleted the gift cards and put them back on, thinking that would solve the problem. And since I have multiple cards for the same amount, and they don't tell you what card you used to purchase the book, I now have the dilema of not knowing how much is left on each indivual card.

[bklvr896]

---

AngeDeMusiquex wrote:

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

Sabersoul, I know what you mean. I've emailed customer service a couple of times, and called there a couple of times too. The first time I called they told me they don't know what the problem is and they can't help me. The second time I called I was on hold for an hour, only to have someone tell me they're experincing a backlog of calls and to try again later.

And I have been keeping a log of it now. It seems like the only soultion as of right now. But before I did that, I actually deleted the gift cards and put them back on, thinking that would solve the problem. And since I have multiple cards for the same amount, and they don't tell you what card you used to purchase the book, I now have the dilema of not knowing how much is left on each indivual card.

---

Normally, the receipt does tell you what card the book price is taken from, however, with this current issue, that field is blank.  I expect it will all get straightened out next week as everyone returns to work from holidays, etc.  As long as I haven't purchased more books than I have on the total of the gift cards, I'm not worried.  Anything else I might want to purchase, I just put in my wish list. But I also don't purchase a lot of books until I want to read them, the exception being books that are on sale.

What I would do if I really wanted or needed to purchase more books than what is available on the current gift cards would be to buy an egift card with sufficient money on it and then remove one of the current gift cards (assuming I still had the card so I could add it back) and replace it with one with more money to cover all my purchases.  But again, I can't think of a reason to purchase that many books all at once except for a sale, which doesn't happen all that often.

[ncdeac]

I'm having the same problem as well.  I just bought 8 ebooks, had more than enough on my gift cards to cover.  All books have downloaded onto my Nook just fine but my gift card balance remains the same.  So far nothing is showing on my default credit card.  I really hope it hits my gift cards like they are supposed to and not my credit card.

[julestrik]

I was having the same prob but each day I seem to get one more book applied to gift card. If you look at the order status it will say not shipped rven though u might have the book on urr library. I think b&n has had an enormous amounnt of cyber shopping and will catch up eventually.

[ncdeac]

My issue appears to have been resolved now.  This morning all 8 of my purchases showed as Shipped and all were charged on my Gift Card as they should have been.

[AngeDeMusiquex]

So far only one of my purchases has been taken off, but it's a lot more progress then what I've had.

Thanks for the update!

[Abuladeen]

I've had the same delays in processing of a gift card: books downloaded to my Nook but showing in the order queue as "Not shipped" with a balance remaining on the gift card. This tells me B&N's system relies on batch processing and human intervention to a degree I'd associate more with the 1980s when I first got into IT than with the second decade of the 21st century. And it makes me appreciate the discipline Amazon showed in building a rock-solid IT infrastructure by plowing profits back into the business year after year.

Unfortunately in my case it's not just delayed processing, annoying as that is in a Web-based system that should be real-time. B&N also seems unable to make use of my credit card account, the same account I use week in and week out for a wide variety of payments without a glimmer of a problem from any other vendor. As a result, B&N is threatening to lock down my account so I can't purchase any more books.

I'm forced to conclude that they have a very nice device in the Nook Color tablet that unfortunately rests on a very flimsy and immature processing and support system.

I tried to reach Customer Support by phone but got to the end of my patience with wait times. I tried to reach them by e-mail but got only a form reply advising me to review their FAQs because they might have the answer to my problem.

Very, very disappointing. I've now found out much more than I really wanted to know about how B&N runs their business.

[brhenry]

I am happy to report I had no problems with my 2 gift cards. After registering them in my account, they worked exactly as they were supposed to. BUT...the big BUT...the credits to the gift cards took quite a while to kick in and show up in the balances. I think alot of people MAY have overreacted when they did not see an instantaneous change in their balances. Granted a large number of people do say their credit cards got charged in the end. So yes, problems for some unfortunate users, and problems for some because they were not patient.

[brhenry]

@ncdeac:  I am really glad your 8 items got resolved. Patience is a virtue!

[sixhotpeppers]

I have been buying ebook gift cards from B&N everyday for the last week+. The first one I bought, I received immediately, as stated. Yes, I'm buying egift cards for myself, then adding them to my account to buy nookbooks. I'm doing this so I can use Paypal to pay (long story.) Anyway, the next day, I ordered another, and I received it about an hour later. The next day, two hours later, the next day about 4-5 hours later, and so on. I ordered another one today and it has been over 6 hours.

Also, as someone said above, I have charges from two days ago that still haven't been taken off of my back up credit card. This is all so confusing. I guess I should have started a log of my own from the beginning, but I figured B&N would have fixed this issue by now. Now, it's too much of a mess for me to figure out what has happened.

I spend money on nookbooks as I find them, the ones that interest me. I feel bad that I don't just combine everything into one big order, it would probably be easier on B&N, but that's just the way I shop for my Nookbooks. I will probably buy several every day for the rest of my life LOL. So, please B&N PLEASE get this fixed!!! Make this stuff happen "immediately" as you state on your website. The holiday rush is over now.

And, I don't mean this to be mean AT ALL. So, sorry if it did. I love my Nook Color, and B&N.

[NanaLou]

I called CS after I noticed a charge to my credit card for books that I purchased.  I explained that I had three gift cards on file and wanted to know why my credit cards was used.  She advised that about a week ago there was a glitch with the system and gift cards were not being accessed for payment and the problem has been corrected. 

[JaraPeregrine]

After 7 days of having a Nook Color I am returning it. Heed my tale and beware!

It was a breeze to start up and buy a few books with my credit card stored on the B&N account. Then, after loading on the value of 2 gift cards ($30 total) every time I tried to purchase I was told "Invalid credit card." This is an error since my bank confirmed that B&N kept sending approval requests to them without any dollar value. The bank approved all requests, yet I was still denied over 4 times (even for free books?!?).

Several great B&N reps tried via phone to assist me but nothing worked. Even after deleting the gift cards, and deleting the credit card, reloading the card info, disconnecting the Nook and rebooting it. The irony is that now the B&N online system STILL thinks my valid VISA card is not valid. Over an hour today for support and no resolution? I can use the local library with much less bother. As others have said here there are clearly system problems at B&N. And crappy system support means a useless product.

[JaraPeregrine]

I agree with Abuladeen! too much trouble as a result of a bad IT support system. In a separate post I give details -- my valid Visa card is now seen as invalid by the B&N system. Not worth the bother to me just to have this toy if it isn't convenient and reliable.

[Darkstarwulf]

I have an issue right now where I cannot redeem my gift cards for the books I want cause it is trying to charge my Debit card which currently has no money so it get's denied...starting to make me mad. I don;'t know what to do. If I can't redeem my card cause it tries to charge my other card what is the use of the gift card then...

[bklvr896]

---

Darkstarwulf wrote:

I have an issue right now where I cannot redeem my gift cards for the books I want cause it is trying to charge my Debit card which currently has no money so it get's denied...starting to make me mad. I don;'t know what to do. If I can't redeem my card cause it tries to charge my other card what is the use of the gift card then...

---

BN uses the default cc/dc to create the encryption key that unlocks the book.  The card has to be valid and they ended to ping the card for nominal amount, if there's no money on the card, then this can't happen.  The reason the cc/dc is used is it is something you're not likely to share with just anyone.  If the card attached has no money, then there's less incentive to not share it, which defeats the purpose.  While they won't charge the card, they have to be able to make that pending transaction to complete the process.