Barnes & Noble.com: EPIC FAIL!

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First of all, can I tell you how red in the face I am – seri­ously I’m livid.  It’s my birth­day for cryin’ out loud and I shouldn’t have to wage war AGAIN with Barnes & Noble’s inept cus­tomer ser­vice cen­ter for their idiocy.

Some back­ground.  I’ve been a loyal B&N cus­tomer for YEARS.  I’ve held the mem­ber­ship faith­fully.  I buy a TON of books, DVDs, etc.  I often enjoy the website’s inter­views, etc. and make a point to buy all my mag­a­zines there.  Need­less to say they make a good sum of funds off me.  I’ve noticed that recently my orders have been *ahem* shall we say slow.  Now one of the perks of buy­ing a cer­tain amount online is “Free Super Saver Ship­ping” which you could set your clock by – 3 busi­ness days or so and *boom* it’s in my hands.  Which is great like when I want to review Jaden’s fabu new cook­book “Steamy Kitchen” and I am look­ing for­ward to the UPS guy knock­ing on the door with that gor­geously shot book (yes I leafed through a copy in the store – I couldn’t wait).  I also ordered the Foodie Hand­book by the one and only Pim.  Can we say I’m crazy stoked about both of these books – both of which I put back in antic­i­pa­tion of the order com­ing to my mailbox. 

Well – it’s two weeks later and, guess what – not one but TWO orders are “lost in the mail”.  That’s my orig­i­nal order AND the order that they issued as a replace­ment for the first one that is “M.I.A” from a dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter in NEW JERSEY – the next flip­pin’ state over.

When I called with con­cern at the end of the week last week to find out what the heck is going on because well, you just can’t get track­ing from their inept dis­trib­u­tor ARGIX DIRECT, they informed me that there were a few com­plaints and that the replace­ment would ship out via UPS to me from now on as I’m a mem­ber who has been with them for years.  The B&N oper­a­tor was very under­stand­ing and also told me that she was hav­ing prob­lems per­son­ally with this dumb as rocks (my descrip­tion – NOT hers) ARGIX DIRECT.   She assured me it would ship out post haste and I again waited patiently for the lit­tle present to come to the door.  Now, mind you my Sephora order came and that I ordered SUNDAY NIGHT via UPS.  The UPS here in Philly rocks!  Love them (which, if you know me is quite the event because UPS in Orlando and New Hamp­shire seri­ously sucked!)

Well, I get an email from B&N which tells me that it reshipped my replace­ment order and *wait for it* it went via ARGIX DIRECT via US MAIL.  AGAIN – from New Jer­sey – next state over.  Shipped out and *boom* guess what – it’s lost in the mail again and we can’t find ANY track­ing info for it because B&N and/or ARGIX dropped the flip­pin’ ball.  What hap­pened to “Ms. Lys – we’re going to ship it to you ASAP through UPS so you won’t have this prob­lem again“

Need­less to say, I lost my patience today when I had to talk to this gal “Cecile” or what­ever who not only told me my address was wrong (news­flash – I changed it imme­di­ately when I moved and it’s on all my receipts so check your flip­pin’ screen dummy because the gal prior to you knew the right address) and then told me “ohhh – it’s got to be lost”.  When I told her I just renewed my mem­ber­ship and I wanted it can­celed and refunded – no go.  She begrudg­ingly refunded my order cost for both books and I told her that we’re hav­ing a hell of a breakup.  This is no Ross/Rachael Friends Breakup – this is the real deal as in don’t call me, don’t email me, lose my damn num­ber we are O.V.E.R.  Seri­ously – OVER.  Which is sad and hurts me deeply because I really did love going to B&N and brows­ing the aisles.  Now, it’s all Bor­ders & Borders.com which is 20 min. out of the way for me but to prove my point, I’ll do it. 

So Barnes & Noble – I don’t believe a word of what you say any­more.  Clearly, while I know you are “cut­ting costs” by using this sup­pos­edly cheaper ARGIX DIRECT ser­vice, you just lost a very loyal (and prof­itable) cus­tomer.  I’ve put up with your lack of chang­ing mag­a­zines, lack of stock in the Ply­mouth Meet­ing Store, etc. because to me B&N has been a part of my shop­ping loy­alty since I was in col­lege.  I just can’t sit by and say “Oh it’s okay” because really it’s not.  What you are doing to cus­tomers is dis­ap­point­ing.  So, here’s where I tell you pub­licly (and my read­ers) – do NOT buy the mem­ber­ship – it’s not worth it.  And, that’s money I will never see again but I’m sure you will need that $25 because you will lose more cus­tomers than me by year’s end if you keep this inept ship­ping dis­trib­u­tor.  Clearly, ARGIX has proved itself to be use­less in my eyes not once but TWICE.  Go figure.

So excuse me while I head over to BORDERS to go buy the Foodie Hand­book and Steamy Kitchen at FULL PRICE because, you know what, Bor­ders has NEVER did me wrong like you have Barnes & Noble.  And I’m sure they will wel­come my busi­ness (and wal­let) with open arms.

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