Why I will never buy anything at Barnes and Noble again

This is an email I sent yesterday to the Barnes and Noble customer service department and the company CEO:

Dear Mr. Riggio,

I am writing to tell you why I will never buy anything from your company again. Based on our recent experience with your Customer Service department  I am certain no one will read, respond, or care about this email , but I will feel moderately better getting this off my chest.

At approximately 3:15 pm on December 7 my wife placed an order for three items on your website. These were Christmas gifts. The system told her two items were available now, the last would arrive in 1-2 weeks. She chose the option for free shipping since all items would be delivered in time for Christmas.

At 3:47 she received a confirming email that none of the items would ship until December 30. This is clearly after Christmas and very different from an arrival in 1-2 weeks. She immediately called your customer service department. It seems one of the three items is back ordered. We understand. These things happen and that is not our complaint.

Your Customer Service Department (I use that term loosely) said they cannot ship the two items that are available because we selected the ship all at once button. That choice was also selected based on the parts being available. The representative said we cannot cancel the order since "the two remaining are already packed". Now I am sure you have a great shipping department, but you do not process an order and pack and ready for shipment within one hour. Further, it is an insult to my intelligence to claim you pack a box with two items and leave the box sitting around for a month waiting on the third item to arrive. If that is your policy, you should immediately fire your management team and is a prime indicator of why Barnes and Noble is in financial difficulty. My wife repeatedly offered to pay the shipping on the two items, or even all three. Supposedly two items are in a box, but you won’t ship them. And we cannot cancel the order.

The only suggestion we got from your customer service team after being placed on hold by four different people for a total of two and one half hours was to wait until the items arrive in early January, refuse the shipment or send it back and we will be credited the purchase amount. It is unacceptable to wait 4-6 weeks to get a refund on items you failed to ship as promised.  You wasted no time in charging my debit card, however.  That you can do with your system. You are efficient in taking a customer's money.

I understand that the terms of the order stated "limited" changes could be made, but the items are not shipping according to the terms of the order.  I have worked in sales and customer service for more than 30 years. I have never heard of an order entry system that does not allow changes or cancellations of an order, especially an hour or so after the order was placed.

So you will get your puny $65 sale for the Christmas season. Your refusal to ship the in-stock items (that are supposedly in a box!) or cancel the order has lost you a customer for life. In the end, you will get the use of the money for however long it takes us to return the items (whenever they arrive). I hope those pennies were worth it to lose two customers for life and your company's reputation damage to however many people I can spread this tale of inept, lousy and insufferable customer service. Since those customer service representatives are the face of your company to the public I can only assume your company profile is one that is uncompromising, inefficient and uncaring.

Joe Hoosierboy

 Feel free to join in my boycott if you like. There is no obligation.