Anyone else get a gift card from BN for cancelling your Touchpad?

[A.Nonymous]

Apparently Barnes and Noble is giving $20 gift cards to some people as an apology for cancelling their Touchpad order a couple of weeks ago. I ordered one. It got cancelled. I'm still pissed about it. I have not got a gift card. Am I the only one in this boat or are there a lot of people in it with me. If I'm the only one, then perhaps I was overlooked somehow. If BN is ignoring me and giving me nothing because I haven't purchased enough from them to be a "valued customer", then they can go f*** themselves and I'm never doing business with them again.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

Didn't get one...

 

[Dahlen]

I got one, but I spent boatloads the last year and a half on my nook and nookbooks. Two of my friends also ordered from B&N during the firesale and neither of them received one either. Neither of them had an existing account with B&N, so my guess is that new customers got shafted. Pretty crappy way to conduct business, but at least they net an email. Another site I ordered from hasn't even notified me that my order was cancelled.

 

[A.Nonymous]

It's complete BS. I've had an account with BN for a long time, but never bought anything with them other than free ebooks. The fact that they've just decided to give the F U to customers who don't spend as much or any money with them is completely BS. They've lost my business forever IMO. I've never received poor customer service from Amazon. That's where I'm going.

BN advertises a product for 8 hours or more after it's sold off, then doesn't even bother to apologize for it really and then decides that they're going to try to make up with the customers that spend tons of money with them, but not with the customers who don't spend as much 'cuz they don't matter. Way to treat your customer right BN.

 

[Dahlen]

I agree completely with everything you said. Have you sent em an email addressing your concerns? Not that I think it would do any good, but it could be interesting to hear their reasoning, if they even have any.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I agree completely with everything you said. Have you sent em an email addressing your concerns? Not that I think it would do any good, but it could be interesting to hear their reasoning, if they even have any.

I haven't, but that's not a bad idea at all. I agree that it won't do any good at all, but it would be interesting to see what they say. I'll do that this evening and post what they say.

 

[geomens]

No, they cancelled 2 orders and not even one gift card

 

[A.Nonymous]

I just saw this post again and remembered that I forgot to send them a nasty letter. This is what I sent them. Bear in mind I do little business with BN and probably will never do business with them again after this debacle so I don't really care about fostering a good relationship with them.

I am writing about my order for an HP Touchpad that was canceled. I have heard from a few friends of mine that they also ordered Touchpads from Barnes and Noble and had their orders canceled as well. They report that they received gift cards from Barnes and Noble as apologies for continuing to list an item on the site 7-8 hours after it was sold out. I received nothing. They also tell me that they regularly buy items from your site while I admittedly do not. Is the gift card offer only valid for those who are frequent customers? Are less frequent customers not as valued? If so, why not? I appreciate your response. Thanks.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I got a response back from BN today. Suffice it to say I will not be doing business with them again. Here's the response:

Dear (name redacted),

Thank you for writing to us about your order for the HP TouchPad Tablet
with 16GB Memory.

Our normal practice is to cancel orders when we do not have enough
inventory to fulfill those orders and our procedure is not to issue gift
cards simply because we cannot fulfill an order. We simply didn?t have
enough inventory to fulfill your order and we made certain you were not
charged for your order.

Some of our most loyal customers, including our Members, do get special
treatment. There are benefits for Members and that may be what you are
seeing.

We?re very sorry for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Eleonore
Customer Service Representative
Barnes & Noble
Barnes

 

[Dahlen]

Wow. Just imagine how different things would be if everyone got a gift card. B&N could have gained a lot of customers. Apparently they prefer to lose them instead.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Wow. Just imagine how different things would be if everyone got a gift card. B&N could have gained a lot of customers. Apparently they prefer to lose them instead.

I couldn't believe they would actually admit that some of their customers get special treatment and some don't. I was like WTF?? Let's be honest, we all know that's true. All businesses treat some of their customers better than others because those customers give them more business, more money, etc... Everyone knows this. No one flat out admits it. Certainly not in the retail world. You don't just come out and say, "You're not as valued a customer so that's why we didn't give you anything."