I got beat to the punch by illmunkeys, and he is exactly right. I have run a customer service business and while icebike also has a point B&N needs to upgrade it's support. Callback queue setups are not that expensive and would go along way in showing B&N's customers they care. Another, and I think much more customer destroying issue is the draconian DRM! My wife's Nook is kind of her lifeline while she is doing her kidney dialysis. Her Nook locked up and I spent 40 minutes on the phone to get a in store replacement. We waited the two hours as requested by the customer service email and rushed over so that we could get her Nook just in time for her dialysis. All good right, wrong, as she tried to read the book she was so into it refused to allow her access as we had canceled the credit card a day or two before as it was lost or stolen. We had a new one sent but it would be 10 to 14 days before it would arrive. I thought that was wrong since we had already paid for all these books and were told everything would be available on the new Nook as soon as it was registered to our account.
Customer service said sorry you have to have a valid credit card in order to access your already purchased books. It's our DRM policy, I explained the situation and asked if there was any way we could get her access to even one book that we already paid for. Yes, I was told, put a new valid credit card on your account. I asked to speak to a supervisor, I was told yes just let the customer service person put me on hold for a minute. Nearly 20 minutes later a man came on and I explained the situation again to him and asked what could be done to help us. This man said 'you'll need a new credit card, after that all your books will be available.' I told him that was just not possible till we get the new card and it wasn't right. He said he was sorry that I felt that way. I asked him about after we re-download all the books we already paid for would it still check the credit card. He said 'yes, now and then, kind of at random it would check and if there was a problem with the card we would not be able to access our books.' That sent me off the deep end! That is just not right, so we don't own the Nook or the books we paid for, we are simply renting/leasing them from B&N! It would be like we were sitting in our bedroom at night reading the great new book. At that moment in an office of B&N they check our credit card and if there is any issue with it they could send someone over to break into our home, come into our bedroom, and take my book from me!
It isn't right and I'm going to file complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, BBB, Washington State and U.S. Federal AG's offices and the FCC. I would like to talk to anyone who has had simular issues and might be interested in talking to attorneys. That level of DRM has no place in this context and it is not made clear to you before you buy/rent the Nook and/or buy/lease your books. Where my family and I were great mouth pieces and sales people for B&N and Nook we are giong to be at least as good broadcasting the fraud and draconian DRM.
It really is sad for us as we really loved B&N and the Nook.
