I'll explain myself if absolutely necessary, but if anyone on this board ever feels like doing me a favor, this would be it: DO NEVER SHOP BARNES & NOBLE, and, tell your friends not to, too.
I'm sure a handful of you are all like: "No shit, B&N sucks. I don't know why you would shop there in the first place." If that's similar to what you thought, than never mind.
The rest of you, however, spread the word.
Thanks in advance,
Dimo (Cuddlefish), TTLC, HMSH, House of GABCab.
It is absolutely necessary.
Easy enough since I don't have one any where near me. Is Border's okay?
Why?
I'm pretty sure we don't have Barnes & Noble up here, but I will try to remember to avoid them next time I am down south.
I already stopped shopping there when they replaced the giant history section with an even bigger Christianity section, and stuffed history on one shelf near the bathrooms, behind the Soduku display...And when they replaced half of the science fiction section with romance novels, and stacked the remainder with 169% vampire/witch/werewolf bullshit.
Am I still allowed to go there and use their wifi to update my Kindle and download books from Amazon?
Quote from: Canis latrans eques on January 28, 2011, 05:41:45 PM
Am I still allowed to go there and use their wifi to update my Kindle and download books from Amazon?
Using their free wifi to buy ebooks from their competitor? :fap:
Quote from: Doktor Phox on January 28, 2011, 05:43:20 PM
Quote from: Canis latrans eques on January 28, 2011, 05:41:45 PM
Am I still allowed to go there and use their wifi to update my Kindle and download books from Amazon?
Using their free wifi to buy ebooks from their competitor? :fap:
Sometimes I bring in coffe from another coffee shop too.
Curious as to the OP, though.
Quote from: Canis latrans eques on January 28, 2011, 05:46:16 PM
Quote from: Doktor Phox on January 28, 2011, 05:43:20 PM
Quote from: Canis latrans eques on January 28, 2011, 05:41:45 PM
Am I still allowed to go there and use their wifi to update my Kindle and download books from Amazon?
Using their free wifi to buy ebooks from their competitor? :fap:
Sometimes I bring in coffe from another coffee shop too.
U IZ MAH HEERO COYOTE! :lulz:
Imma gonna guess it has something to do with somebody he knows who is/was employed by B & L. Emphasis on the was.
In that spirit: Do nevar shop at Brookstone. Ever!
Considering Borders is going under, we all may not have a choice for megabookstores but to go to B&N.
All I have to say is, if you went to the one on Rte 2, then it's your own goddamn fault. Do never Rte 2 anything. Ever.
??? C'mon... I need to know the story
Yes and explain Rte. 2 also. I never have any reason to go to the part that runs through MA, so I'm not sure what's wrong with it.
Well, it runs through Concord and Leominster, for starters.
My dad recently discovered Amazon. He no longer feels the need to go into the megachain bookstores, and only shops at used and local places when he actually goes out. It was quite the revelation for him; he had only used eBay before, and then my mom (being the master of library and information science) pointed Amazon out to him. I hear it was a funny event.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 28, 2011, 06:44:03 PM
Well, it runs through Concord and Leominster, for starters.
Good point.
Quote from: Doktor Blight on January 28, 2011, 06:40:20 PM
Yes and explain Rte. 2 also. I never have any reason to go to the part that runs through MA, so I'm not sure what's wrong with it.
Rte 2 MA is not Rte 2 RI.
Rte 2 RI starts as Reservoir Ave in Cranston and goes all the way to the Sound. The entire stretch of it through Warwick and West Warwick is the suburbanite shopping strip for the entirety of Kent County. It's all strip malls, auto malls, real malls (Warwick Mall and RI Mall are literally across 295 from each other while both being on Rte 2), every chain restaurant you can think of and every big name chain store, all strung together in a 2.5 mile mess. Long story short if it ain't on Rootwo Wahwick, it doesn't exist. I seriously think something like a quarter of the states population works on Rte 2. That's like 400,000 people!
That strip of the state defines everything that is wrong with America. You don't Rte 2 unless you have no other choice. I really only go down there if I need to hit a certain amount of stores within a close proximity of one another in a certain order between Tollgate Rd and 113. Other than that, I avoid it, because it's always an epic clusterfuck, and go elsewhere in the state or up to Washington St. in Attleboro, which is almost the same thing, but for some reason not NEARLY as much of a nightmare and has less sales tax anyway. Rte 2 requires heavy artillery and at least an extra hour in the time budget for traffic between stores, even if they're the next plaza up.
What sucks is that it's where the only Trader Joe's in the state is. :argh!:
See? Even God doesn't like Rte 2.
(http://www.labelscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/warwick-mall-flooded.jpg)
Damn.
Oh, so it's Route 9 in Natick.
I'm going to need an enormous inducement to boycott B & N. Something along the lines of "conclusive evidence that B & N participate in genocide" or similar.
a) Our local store is pretty good.
b) Being a B&N member, I've saved a nice chunk of cash.
c) I've spent many hours of quality thinking/studying time in the cafe.
d) I've gotten to know a lot of the staff in there and, for the most part, they're really nice.
e) I have a Nook.
f) B&N is located very near to where Mrs Mang works. Very convenient.
Thus - No, I will not stop going there, buying their products or using their services.
My local B&N has a Teen Supernatural Romance section. :horrormirth:
Most B&N places I've been to run a nicer store than Borders, overall.
But any local bookstore is preferable, obviously. There's a terrific discount bookstore near my school that knocks a chunk off the prices of various books that are not in pristine condition.
Cuddledimo, yuo must share with us the tale of B&N's depraved evil schemes. Otherwise I might not be sufficiently committed to Sparkle Motion jihaad against them.
Ima go with NO unless you tell me they murder kittens or something
Quote from: ☂ The Fred ☂ on January 28, 2011, 09:55:38 PM
Ima go with NO unless you tell me they murder kittens or something
IMA GO WITH NO UNLESS THEY DON'T MURDER KITTENS.
Quote from: Cainad on January 28, 2011, 09:49:00 PM
Most B&N places I've been to run a nicer store than Borders, overall.
But any local bookstore is preferable, obviously. There's a terrific discount bookstore near my school that knocks a chunk off the prices of various books that are not in pristine condition.
Cuddledimo, yuo must share with us the tale of B&N's depraved evil schemes. Otherwise I might not be sufficiently committed to Sparkle Motion jihaad against them.
I do support independent stores when I can find them. Mondazzi in Windsor CT, Weiser Antiquarian in Maine and this wonderfully unhinged '50% off everything!' store in Salem. MA. Mrs Mang & I frequent Library fundraiser sales too which means we get cheap books and the libraries get to stay open. Yay.
(The Borders we had used to be fantastic but it's been in decline over the last couple of years and it's kind of sad in there now.)
WTF? People still buy books from brick-and-mortar stores? Hurry up and get to the 21st century, spags!
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on January 28, 2011, 10:43:47 PM
WTF? People still buy books from brick-and-mortar stores? Hurry up and get to the 21st century, spags!
Main appeal: I can go to a meatspace bookstore and read a comic book while I'm there, and if I'm so inclined buy and read a book
now and not next week.
Also: excuse to be out of the house/off campus.
I bought books at Waterstones because I knew someone working there who would let me use their staff discount, and because I like just browsing bookstores sometimes, a feat which is much harder on the web (or much harder to do aimlessly, while getting a feel for what is currently out there).
If I need a book really fast, my ass is going to Borders or B&N. I love our local mom and pop places, but they aren't guaranteed to have what I need in a hurry.
Quote from: Cain on January 28, 2011, 11:27:16 PM
I bought books at Waterstones because I knew someone working there who would let me use their staff discount, and because I like just browsing bookstores sometimes, a feat which is much harder on the web (or much harder to do aimlessly, while getting a feel for what is currently out there).
Browsing! That's the key.
I love browsing books and being able to pick up/put down & generally examine the merchandise in a way you can't online. I like the fact that in a bookstore you can be confronted with things that you might not have ordinarily looked at online.
I love books and I love reading. For me, there's a time and a place for the big stores, for the independents, for the real books and the e-books. Depends on my mood, circumstance, cost etc.
I've heard people say stuff like: "Why don't you just get everything online?"
Well, if you're just going to read airport novels, then fine. But if you're looking at antique books, rare, odd or interesting - Amazon doesn't cut it. Besides, because of post e-bay culture, every schmuck and their dog thinks they're a 'book dealer'. They're not. I know people who run an antique, specialist store and that's a very long way from most of the people dealing online.
I've had people accuse me of being some kind of book traitor for having an e-reader. Uhh...yeah, I'm sure that when Guttenburg showed up, people were like "Fuck that! I'm only reading illuminated manuscripts!". It's ridiculous. Sometimes the e-book suits me better, sometimes it doesn't.
I've heard the reverse argument too. "Apart from my Harry Potter books, I'm getting rid of my library and just read on my Kindle." Ok fine. But I have signed first editions of real books that I happen to like.
Bottom line - I do whatever I can to get the book I want in the most appropriate fashion. I don't buy into the 'hipper than thou - I only do digital' attitude any more than the biblio-fascists.
And there's nothing really that 21st century about ordering from Amazon. It's fucking
mail order and that's been around for a long time. All that's different from Amazon and a Sears Roebuck catalog is the interface. At the end of the day, your items are stored in a brick & mortar warehouse, packed by people and placed on trucks that burn fossil fuels. Whoo....cutting edge! :D
Sorry to take so long, as I was saying in another topic, my computer is busted, so I'm getting on here when I can, which apparently isn't that often. Let's see if I can tell this story properly, it's a little long-ish.
I made an order at Barnes &Noble.com. It took them a few days to confirm the order via e-mail (within my experience, confirmation e-mails are usually sent within minutes, not days), and when they did, I noticed that, for some reason, they were telling me my order would not even ship for almost a month (again, in my experience dealing with just about ANYONE else, orders are generally received in less time than that).
Okay, so I was getting a little aggravated, and I happened to know both the manufacturers website and the warehouses website for the items I had ordered (the items B&N had already sold me) just to find that the items were OUT OF PRINT.
I wanted to give B&N the benefit of the doubt, but the fact that they claimed it would take almost a month just to ship these items (that were unavailable from the manufacturer) lead me to believe that they could not get these items, and they had charged me for something they did not have and could not get.
So, I decided to give them a call to see if, maybe, they were actually going to send me these things (even though I knew the items were unavailable). And here started the ass-pains. First off, the first time I called I didn't even talk to someone; I was on hold for too long and had to, y'know, go do more important stuff. The second time wasn't any better. I waited on hold for about an hour (I don't wait on hold that long for anything else, why is this such a difficult thing for B&N?). Finally, I got someone. I told them that I had checked the warehouse that my items were no-doubt coming from, and told them that the items I ordered were not in stock over there. I then expressed that I would rather cancel the order if these items aren't available, instead of letting my money sit in a B&N bank account for a month. The associate ASSURED me these items would be shipped on the date they said. Sure enough, a month later, I get an e-mail saying that the items I ordered were not available.
Maybe it's all my fault for believing them.
Anyhow, at this point, I'm a little pissed. I mean, I KNEW these items weren't available, but these fuckers just HAD to talk me into letting them hold my money. Well, I had to get back on the phone, and here we go again. An hour or so to talk to a rep.
Now, one thing that bears mentioning is that these customer service reps are more like the police. I was required to verify an outrageous amount of information before they would even address my issue, and when I gave them all the info they asked, they refused to address the issue, and instead asked me to verify even more information, as if I was lying about who I was. I feel these people purposely implement long waits on the phone, as a deterrent to potential complaints, which they follow up with an argumentative and accusatory "help" staff to get people riled up and avoid having to actually take responsibility for their shitty service. Anyhow...
After an hour of waiting, I got a police officer service rep on the line, and immediately asked for a supervisor (the last time I talked to a rep they "assured" me that they were shipping me something that they didn't have).
I waited ANOTHER hour or so.
The supervisor was every bit as insulting and rude as the other reps. No one EVER made any attempts to compensate me for all the aggravation in dealing with their terrible customer service. No one made any attempts to apologize for TAKING MY MONEY FOR SOMETHING THEY DIDN'T HAVE, AND NEVER INTENDED ON SENDING. Nothing. Apparently, it was all my fault for thinking I could order merchandise from B&N like a normal retailer.
Anyhow, my goal during this call was to try and get the refund placed onto the credit card that the balance was paid with, as opposed to the gift card that I payed with, as I no longer had it (because, y'know, when I buy anything anywhere else, they take the money, and send me my shit, and I toss the card). Plus, I told her that, in addition to no longer having the card, I didn't want a card anyway, because I had no intention of ever shopping there ever again (The actual store near my house had incredibly deceptive signage, among other customer service issues).
I had been really patient and moderately nice during the HOURS I spent on the phone (like I was trying to reach the DMV or something), but these people pretty much gave me the Corporate-ese version of "go fuck yourself." I asked to speak to the supervisors supervisor, and she informed me that the corporate office doesn't take calls, and my e-mail will be most likely ignored, if I cared to send one.
At this point, I had stopped being so nice. I put the supervisor on hold for a ridiculous period of time while I googled "Barnes & Noble Complaints. (http://www.google.com/search?q=barnes+%26+noble+complaints&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)" I was looking for a good place to post my story, and found that B&N already has a bit of a reputation for taking money for things they don't have, and holding peoples money for way longer than is reasonable.
Anyhow, still on the phone with these assholes, I asked the supervisor if she was near a computer. She said no. I told her: "The next time you're near a computer, google Barnes & Noble Complaints. You will see pages and PAGES of people talking shit. And they are talking about YOU and your co-workings in specific. You may want to see what these people are saying about you."
And, really, there's so much more, but I don't feel like typing about it any longer, so...
Anyway, long story short, I'm not ordinarily a vindictive person, but when it comes to a corporation, who should be kissing the customers ass after pulling such a boner, but instead, decides to bully, not just me, but anyone else that's unfortunate enough to have an issue, well, that shit don't fly well with me. And I WILL be a vindictive little cunt. I will continue to tell everyone I know to not shop there. Some people won't regard my request, but the point is that some will, and I will take the time get to every one of those people. I'm so sick of businesses bullying customers. They feel they can get away with it because most people feel that there's nothing that can be done. Fuck that, I will spread SO MUCH SHIT about these people. It aint right, it aint fair, and these assholes need to pay somehow. If the Gov't won't regulate these people, and they won't regulate themselves, I FUCKING WILL (do my best, anyhow.)
If you don't like my story, fuck you. And anyone who honestly attempts to defend this company is automatically on my shit-list (except the people that will defend them just to try and piss me off. I'm alright with that.)
That's bad service, alright, I'm with ya. If only because I don't want that to happen to me :-/