Broken Nook in Canada

[Tired_]

The battery died on my Nook Simple Touch.  Yesterday, it showed a question mark where the battery icon usually is, and today it won't turn on unless it's plugged in (and as soon as I unplug it, it dies on whatever page it was on until I plug it in again).  No problem, I thought, and called in the Barnes & Noble number to set up an exchange.  I spoke to a gentleman, who took down my serial number and verified my warranty was good, and he determined that my Nook needed to be replaced.  That's where I ran into trouble.  He told me he could only exchange my Nook to a US address.  I moved to Canada in February, after I bought my Nook in California in December, and so I obviously don't have a US address.  He insisted there was absolutely no way they could ship a replacement Nook to Canada.  I'm dumbfounded by this response...I bought my Nook in good faith, and now it's a brick.  Is this really the best they will do?  I love my Nook, and I miss using it.

[kamas716]

Have any friends left in the US?  Have it sent to them and they can ship it to you.

[MacMcK1957]

The reason for the problem is that they cannot verify that they have valid rights to every single book they sell under Canadian copyright laws, so they avoid the issue by not selling or shipping Nooks into Canada, or any other foreign country.  You'll need to find someone in the US who can forward it to you.

[Tired_]

That's a ridiculous answer, do you actually believe that is how Canadian law works?.  Apple does not hold the rights to every piece of music that could be placed on an iPod, and yet they can ship them to other countries.  Same goes for Amazon and Kobo.  I'm incredulous that I have to pay for shipping twice, once to send it back, and once again to have it forwarded back to me.  I can see the US out my window (across the water, a $50 ferry trip each way).  All I want is to use the Nook I paid $100 for.  I don't see why they won't do that.

[Sun_Cat]

I agree that it's nuts for B&N to behave as if by transporting the Nook across the border you've voided the warranty. (That provision could be somewhere in the 140 pages of legalese you agreed to when you registered it, but I doubt it.)

To engage someone from B&N who may be able to help, you have a couple of options on these boards. One is to send a private message to BN_AlexG. Alex has frequently said that he would try to intervene on knotty customer service issues. The other is to post a question on the new Ask B&N board, which is supposed to be read by actual B&N people. Good luck!

[Byteguy]

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Tired_ wrote:

.... Apple does not hold the rights to every piece of music that could be placed on an iPod, and yet they can ship them to other countries.  Same goes for Amazon and Kobo. ...

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Apple negotiated world-wide rights for all items on iTunes.  Amazon spent a fortune working out legal agreements with the big publishing houses for wold-wide rights.  Kobo is a Canadian company.

Publishing rights are a mess right now and B&N has taken a hard-line stand.

I agree, it's silly but you are talking Apples (not Job's Apples) and Oranges.  I certainly hope B&N is working on the global agreements.