5 ms·

Learn from my misery: Don't buy a nook.

178 points by there 17y ago

chrisgoodrich 17y ago
This should be a case study for recruiting. Sounds like Barnes & Noble's hiring practices need a serious overhaul. Find some passionate people and they could turn around their business in no time.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  I'm not so sure this was a hiring problem. It sounds like everyone he came into contact with treated him well, while he was in contact with them. The individuals who promised to get back were probably in chaos, and/or told to say exactly that and then take the next call. And the next. But they were probably doing their job very well, within the system they found themselves in. It sounds to me like a large part of fulfillment was outsourced (not so unusual) and there was very little involvement from BN during the "channel design" (don't know what you call that, I'm not in the biz) and channel operation. Basically, some vendor was allowed by BN to screw BN and its customers. The VP who denied the $100 gift card was probably staunching a hemorrhage of gift cards. None of this is an excuse. But it sounds like BN actually hired well, at the point of customer contact.
  - chrisgoodrich 17y ago
    I see your point, it probably has more to do with culture than hiring. The employees (at all levels) do appear to have done what was required of them with a friendly tone. Where I think this becomes a hiring problem is that I would expect that somewhere along the way that Barnes & Noble would have hired somebody who would actually do what they were hired to do - Customer Service. In my opinion, this issue was never resolved and therefore every representative who worked on this case did NOT actually do their job. No representative (regardless of the process) should promise a call back if they don't actually intend to follow through. If Barnes & Noble had hired correctly, the system wouldn't have failed this miserably.
cmelbye 17y ago
It's sad hearing stories of companies being complete idiots towards customers like in this case. I can't believe that this still happening in this day and age.
staunch 17y ago
Can't help but thinking the Amazon affiliate link to the Kindle is tacky and lame. It's hidden by a URL redirector, and only disclosed at the end (the second time it's used). I also can't help but thinking that this is not a friendly warning to others, but simply one more attempt to finally get something out of B&N by causing a public fuss. Call me Mr. Cynical.
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  The link says "buy a kindle". It's pretty obvious where the link goes. Why would you care if he gets commission on it?
  - sh1mmer 17y ago
    He also refers at the beginning of the article to his Kindle hacking. He's clearly into that.
  - kmt 17y ago
    Principally, you care because you might have been manipulated into reading an article with a catchy name just so the author can make some sales. That said, most likely this particular post is a genuine complaint plus an opportunistic idea.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      Principally, you care because you might have been manipulated into reading an article with a catchy name just so the author can make some sales. If it weren't someone that we all know, then that might be an issue. But Jesse has been around the hacker and entrepreneurial community for a long time, and has a reputation to uphold. If you've been to OSCON, YAPC, etc. you've probably seen him speak and possibly met him. He's not some random dude trying to cash in on this new-fangled Internet thing.
      - kmt 17y ago
        Certainly. In a previous life (10 years ago) I've been a user (and a hacker) of RT. So I know the guy, which is why I said this is most likely genuine.
Luyt 17y ago
I bought a BeBook, which is a rebranded Hanlin. Why? Because it's an open platform: I run OpenInkpot on it, and I even could write my own software for it if I wanted to. It doesn't have wifi, but I don't miss it; I copy ebooks and texts on it using the USB cable. It displays flat plain text files fast and well. As for readability on portable electronic devices, nothing can beat an e-Ink display in the bright sun ;-)
- pedalpete 17y ago
  But where do you get complete books to read on it?
  - RevRal 17y ago
    I use Project Gutenberg to get free ebooks. http://www.gutenberg.org http://www.gutenberg.org
    - rinich 17y ago
      That's great if you're fine with not reading anything written while we were alive.
      - RevRal 17y ago
        I can't vouch for the service, but there's ebooks.com . Personally, I prefer formats more flexible than PDFs, like plain text files. DRM issues. Pricing issues. Platform issues. And, apparently, customer service issues. The ebook has a little more maturing to do, so for contemporary books I'd still stick with physical copies.
        hexley 17y ago
        How is a plain text file more flexible than a PDF? It's trivial programatically to extract plain text from a PDF so it's as least as good as .txt?
ryanpetrich 17y ago
But doesn't misery love company?
jcapote 17y ago
This has nothing to do with the nook itself but rather the process about acquiring one through the holidays. I expected an article about the actual hardware itself.
- mbreese 17y ago
  This is true, but if their customer service for acquiring the device is anything like their customer service if something goes wrong and they already have your money, this is a bad sign. Not only that, but he's spent so much time (~2months) dealing with this that it has jaded him entirely on the entire thing. What was supposed to be a good experience (who doesn't like a new gadget?) was ruined by B&N customer service. True, this was their first big foray into consumer electronics... but that's no excuse for bad service. Even if they had said in December "it's on backorder, and we have no idea when it will ship", that would have been 100X better for this guy. If you promise something, you must follow through. This is something that most companies just don't get: details matter. How you're treated on the phone matters. The ordering process matters. The pre-purchase information (web page) matters. Hell, even the box and shipping process matters. And this is all before you even get to use the device. Imagine if you've gone through all of that. How could you possibly write a non-biased review? You can't, because all of the stuff leading up to the device showing up at your door completely ruined the experience.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- gxs 17y ago
  I agree 100%. I was pissed that I got to the end of the article and it was just a customer service rant for a nook he never, ever received. No comment on the device itself. These situations happen from time to time. I understand his outrage, but front page?
RevRal 17y ago
Barnes and Noble: "We canceled your order. Fuck you."
- RevRal 17y ago
  I can understand why my comment has been downvoted, but to clarify and save face a little bit. . . . I would feel insulted if, after corresponding with a company with that much effort, the result was a big fat nothing. To me, the 100 dollars would be trivial. I have an interest in keeping a good relationship with everybody, even companies. It doesn't feel good for a situation to have an outcome like this.
flatline 17y ago
This was entirely a rant about customer service and delivery issues. I got my nook a week before they promised delivery and I've been perfectly happy with it ever since. I even called customer service once while waiting for it and they answered all my questions. The Nook itself is still a little rough around the edges - it just feels like it was a rushed job to get it to market, which it probably was. The good news is that most of the problems I've experienced with it seem to be software related. Biggest annoyances are not being able to go to a page (?) and the sluggishness of the LCD touchscreen. It's crashed a couple times formatting a book the first time in. OTOH, the paging speed is good, the PDF support is adequate, and I've spent a fair amount of time reading on it without issue.
- count 17y ago
  The paging speed is good? Wow, your expectations are super low - I can almost read the pages faster than the nook can turn them!
  - jff 17y ago
    The Kindle is no better. Flash, flash, flash, flash, ok we've finally loaded your next page. I would have hoped that an electronic book reader could turn pages faster than I can by hand.
teej 17y ago
I have one word for you my friend: chargeback. Call your credit card issuer and state that you a retail outlet made a sale, made some promises on that sale, and charged you $278. This is the easiest action you can do to deal the most damage. Anyone who processes payments knows that chargeback hurt a lot. Chargebacks are a consumer protection, so they are easy to do. If a company makes a promise to give you X, Y, & Z at a certain price, they have to follow through. You have a few options, but chargebacks can be the simplest way to get there.
- compay 17y ago
  Having owned a merchant account for many years, I can tell you that this advice is 100% correct. Do it now!
- jordyhoyt 17y ago
  To add to this, threatening to chargeback can be an excellent way to get decent customer service out of some places. Most customer service associates are trained to go way out of their way to avoid it.
  - patio11 17y ago
    You can also avoid the call center by looking up your favorite source of executive information, finding the name and address of someone like a VP of Customer Relations or what have you, and writing them a polite, businesslike letter on dead tree explaining what happened and what they need to do to make it right for you. This will get read by their secretary, who will call the switchboard, ask to be transferred to the person in charge, and say "The Boss wants this handled now." And that is about all it takes. (Well, apparently the VP in this case was not great, either, but you could have shaved two months off the resolution time by contacting her earlier.) I've had to do this to a bank or two which was under the mistaken impression that I owed them money. Incidentally: a tact I particularly like, since I own shares of essentially any publicly traded stock by dint of owning broad index funds, is to send the letter to Investor Relations. Just say you're a shareholder (you are certainly not the most convoluted situation that results in getting invited to their shareholder meeting) and that you've had a problem, blah blah blah, please fix at your earliest convenience.
siong1987 17y ago
I own a nook myself now. And, used to have kindle. From my experience, kindle is a lot better than nook with just two reasons: 1. Amazon offers more books(especially programming books) than B&N. 2. Amazon offers cheaper books and it doesn't require you to join the Amazon book club. You have to join the B&N Book Club to get cheaper price which is always the same price that you get from Amazon.
sown 17y ago
>We recently received an email from you. However, the email did not include a text message. Kindly re-send your inquiry with a text message so that we may respond to your request. I'm going to remember that one. It was pretty good.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  I see something like this and can't but think of how in the world it could happen. I really can't see a person doing this; there must be some wonky code that filters mail. All to make things more efficient.
mscarborough 17y ago
Long story short, early adoption invites a lot of problems. Not to discount the OP's valid issues, but shipping and customer service problems have been evident with most every new hardware release that I can remember. edit: plus at the end of 2009 i noticed that while the local B&N has a big Nook sales kiosk right when you walk in, staffed by a salesperson, when you go to buy a book the big Nook banners behind the sales desk have small 'sold out' banners taped across. obviously a bad sign.
DanielStraight 17y ago
What I still don't get is after stories like this and my own experiences dealing with customer service is why they don't just put one person at the call center who actually has the power to do something. If there was someone there that could make an autonomous decision without needing to ask the computer for permission and physically put a Nook and a $100 gift card on a truck to your house, then we wouldn't have these problems. But no one can. I get the impression that all the people you dealt with were being completely honest. They sympathized but literally couldn't do anything about it, at least not without getting fired. Customer service people who can't do anything are as good as no customer service people at all. I don't understand companies not trusting and giving real power to their customer service agents.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  customer service reps with the power to send out goodies = scam target.
  - catzaa 17y ago
    Maybe. But I am sure that if records show that a product is delayed, then the customer service rep should have a bit of leeway to make the customer happy.
  - gsmaverick 17y ago
    It seems to me that is not always true. It is well-documented that all Zappos customer reps have to ability to hand out goodies as they see fit.
patio11 17y ago
The ex-CS drone in me winced just reading that. Granted, I think we're probably getting half the story -- my experience with customers that type subject lines like "Help! multiple nook delays and broken promises" is that they are not always the most pain-free to deal with. (The easiest customers to support are the ones who treat it like it is all business. Incidentally, taking this tact has helped me with a megacorp or six over the years.) However, the fact that something even remotely close to that story could happen shows broken CS policies. At my previous employer where I was a CS drone, I could have resolved the issue on any call: "Oh, we promised you a $100 gift card? I'm terribly sorry you haven't received it, sir. Can I make it up to you by issuing a $100 refund to your credit card, which will show on your bank statement within one to three business days?" Or at ANY point in the circus they could have said "I'm sending you a new Nook. It will ship from our warehouse within the hour and be hand delivered by FedEx tomorrow morning. When the first one arrives in a few days, do us a favor and just tell the delivery guy to take it back. Don't worry about the cost: we'll cover all the charges. We're serious about making you happy." Obviously you don't want $8 an hour CS drones making that decision too often, but you can always just trust-but-verify their judgments. (I got flagged by the computer twice for being overly generous. My manager came over to talk to me about it. I said "A customer was unhappy. I resolved the situation." and got a pat on my shoulder. This was in a business with margins so thin you could shave with them, too, rather than high-end electronics which lock people into your purchasing system for life. Crikey, you think they'd fall over themselves trying to get that in his hands.)
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  I'm not sure of the etiquette but: tact should be tack, it's an old nautical reference. Only mentioned since you used it twice.
  - patio11 17y ago
    Thanks! I've apparently been misusing that my entire life.
    - ars 17y ago
Xixi 17y ago
That reminds me an anecdote when I moved to Paris. I wanted to get DSL, the standard over there with quite many operators to choose from. I choosed Free, because they are cheap (30€ for ~18 Mbps at the time if I remember correctly, TV and phone), and the most innovative player. They also have a reputation of extremely bad customer service... Since I didn't have a phone line (yet), and the previous tenant didn't have a phone line either, the process seemed to be a tad more complicated than usual (for them). Anyway I ended up on the phone with one of their sale rep (obviously not French, my guess would be someone based in Marocco), who told me that it was going to take roughly 4 to 6 weeks to setup the phone line, and then everything would be fine. That's a very long time... but what do you want, they are cheap, and it's France, never expect anything to come fast. 2 months later nothing, not an email, not a phone call, nothing at all. Considering their completely useless customer service abroad, I decided to just forget about them (without canceling anything) and called one of their competitor (Orange, formerly known as France Telecom) : the most expensive, but 1 week later I had phone, TV and 8 Mbps internet for 44€ euros a month. 14€ more than Free, 10 Mbps slower, but at last I could stop "borrowing" my neighbor connection. I never heard about Free again until one year and a half later, when I received an email roughly stating that "there had been an issue and consequently I won't get DSL from them". I will never know what went wrong, but I'm amazed that they reacted after such a long time. I mean, one year and a half... I wonder. After such a long time they should have guessed that I don't care anymore ? What were they thinking ? It was way too late not to look completely ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense to me.
nobosh 17y ago
Sad story but not at all unexpected.

178 points by there 17y ago

This should be a case study for recruiting. Sounds like Barnes & Noble's hiring practices need a serious overhaul. Find some passionate people and they could turn around their business in no time.

nfnaaron 17y ago
I'm not so sure this was a hiring problem. It sounds like everyone he came into contact with treated him well, while he was in contact with them. The individuals who promised to get back were probably in chaos, and/or told to say exactly that and then take the next call. And the next. But they were probably doing their job very well, within the system they found themselves in. It sounds to me like a large part of fulfillment was outsourced (not so unusual) and there was very little involvement from BN during the "channel design" (don't know what you call that, I'm not in the biz) and channel operation. Basically, some vendor was allowed by BN to screw BN and its customers. The VP who denied the $100 gift card was probably staunching a hemorrhage of gift cards. None of this is an excuse. But it sounds like BN actually hired well, at the point of customer contact.
- chrisgoodrich 17y ago
  I see your point, it probably has more to do with culture than hiring. The employees (at all levels) do appear to have done what was required of them with a friendly tone. Where I think this becomes a hiring problem is that I would expect that somewhere along the way that Barnes & Noble would have hired somebody who would actually do what they were hired to do - Customer Service. In my opinion, this issue was never resolved and therefore every representative who worked on this case did NOT actually do their job. No representative (regardless of the process) should promise a call back if they don't actually intend to follow through. If Barnes & Noble had hired correctly, the system wouldn't have failed this miserably.

cmelbye 17y ago

It's sad hearing stories of companies being complete idiots towards customers like in this case. I can't believe that this still happening in this day and age.

staunch 17y ago

Can't help but thinking the Amazon affiliate link to the Kindle is tacky and lame. It's hidden by a URL redirector, and only disclosed at the end (the second time it's used). I also can't help but thinking that this is not a friendly warning to others, but simply one more attempt to finally get something out of B&N by causing a public fuss. Call me Mr. Cynical.

chaosmachine 17y ago
The link says "buy a kindle". It's pretty obvious where the link goes. Why would you care if he gets commission on it?
- sh1mmer 17y ago
  He also refers at the beginning of the article to his Kindle hacking. He's clearly into that.
- kmt 17y ago
  Principally, you care because you might have been manipulated into reading an article with a catchy name just so the author can make some sales. That said, most likely this particular post is a genuine complaint plus an opportunistic idea.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    Principally, you care because you might have been manipulated into reading an article with a catchy name just so the author can make some sales. If it weren't someone that we all know, then that might be an issue. But Jesse has been around the hacker and entrepreneurial community for a long time, and has a reputation to uphold. If you've been to OSCON, YAPC, etc. you've probably seen him speak and possibly met him. He's not some random dude trying to cash in on this new-fangled Internet thing.
    - kmt 17y ago
      Certainly. In a previous life (10 years ago) I've been a user (and a hacker) of RT. So I know the guy, which is why I said this is most likely genuine.

Luyt 17y ago

I bought a BeBook, which is a rebranded Hanlin. Why? Because it's an open platform: I run OpenInkpot on it, and I even could write my own software for it if I wanted to. It doesn't have wifi, but I don't miss it; I copy ebooks and texts on it using the USB cable. It displays flat plain text files fast and well. As for readability on portable electronic devices, nothing can beat an e-Ink display in the bright sun ;-)

pedalpete 17y ago
But where do you get complete books to read on it?
- RevRal 17y ago
  I use Project Gutenberg to get free ebooks. http://www.gutenberg.org http://www.gutenberg.org
  - rinich 17y ago
    That's great if you're fine with not reading anything written while we were alive.
    - RevRal 17y ago
      I can't vouch for the service, but there's ebooks.com . Personally, I prefer formats more flexible than PDFs, like plain text files. DRM issues. Pricing issues. Platform issues. And, apparently, customer service issues. The ebook has a little more maturing to do, so for contemporary books I'd still stick with physical copies.
      - hexley 17y ago
        How is a plain text file more flexible than a PDF? It's trivial programatically to extract plain text from a PDF so it's as least as good as .txt?

ryanpetrich 17y ago

But doesn't misery love company?

jcapote 17y ago

This has nothing to do with the nook itself but rather the process about acquiring one through the holidays. I expected an article about the actual hardware itself.

mbreese 17y ago
This is true, but if their customer service for acquiring the device is anything like their customer service if something goes wrong and they already have your money, this is a bad sign. Not only that, but he's spent so much time (~2months) dealing with this that it has jaded him entirely on the entire thing. What was supposed to be a good experience (who doesn't like a new gadget?) was ruined by B&N customer service. True, this was their first big foray into consumer electronics... but that's no excuse for bad service. Even if they had said in December "it's on backorder, and we have no idea when it will ship", that would have been 100X better for this guy. If you promise something, you must follow through. This is something that most companies just don't get: details matter. How you're treated on the phone matters. The ordering process matters. The pre-purchase information (web page) matters. Hell, even the box and shipping process matters. And this is all before you even get to use the device. Imagine if you've gone through all of that. How could you possibly write a non-biased review? You can't, because all of the stuff leading up to the device showing up at your door completely ruined the experience.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
gxs 17y ago
I agree 100%. I was pissed that I got to the end of the article and it was just a customer service rant for a nook he never, ever received. No comment on the device itself. These situations happen from time to time. I understand his outrage, but front page?

RevRal 17y ago

Barnes and Noble: "We canceled your order. Fuck you."

RevRal 17y ago
I can understand why my comment has been downvoted, but to clarify and save face a little bit. . . . I would feel insulted if, after corresponding with a company with that much effort, the result was a big fat nothing. To me, the 100 dollars would be trivial. I have an interest in keeping a good relationship with everybody, even companies. It doesn't feel good for a situation to have an outcome like this.

flatline 17y ago

This was entirely a rant about customer service and delivery issues. I got my nook a week before they promised delivery and I've been perfectly happy with it ever since. I even called customer service once while waiting for it and they answered all my questions. The Nook itself is still a little rough around the edges - it just feels like it was a rushed job to get it to market, which it probably was. The good news is that most of the problems I've experienced with it seem to be software related. Biggest annoyances are not being able to go to a page (?) and the sluggishness of the LCD touchscreen. It's crashed a couple times formatting a book the first time in. OTOH, the paging speed is good, the PDF support is adequate, and I've spent a fair amount of time reading on it without issue.

count 17y ago
The paging speed is good? Wow, your expectations are super low - I can almost read the pages faster than the nook can turn them!
- jff 17y ago
  The Kindle is no better. Flash, flash, flash, flash, ok we've finally loaded your next page. I would have hoped that an electronic book reader could turn pages faster than I can by hand.

teej 17y ago

I have one word for you my friend: chargeback. Call your credit card issuer and state that you a retail outlet made a sale, made some promises on that sale, and charged you $278. This is the easiest action you can do to deal the most damage. Anyone who processes payments knows that chargeback hurt a lot. Chargebacks are a consumer protection, so they are easy to do. If a company makes a promise to give you X, Y, & Z at a certain price, they have to follow through. You have a few options, but chargebacks can be the simplest way to get there.

compay 17y ago
Having owned a merchant account for many years, I can tell you that this advice is 100% correct. Do it now!
jordyhoyt 17y ago
To add to this, threatening to chargeback can be an excellent way to get decent customer service out of some places. Most customer service associates are trained to go way out of their way to avoid it.
- patio11 17y ago
  You can also avoid the call center by looking up your favorite source of executive information, finding the name and address of someone like a VP of Customer Relations or what have you, and writing them a polite, businesslike letter on dead tree explaining what happened and what they need to do to make it right for you. This will get read by their secretary, who will call the switchboard, ask to be transferred to the person in charge, and say "The Boss wants this handled now." And that is about all it takes. (Well, apparently the VP in this case was not great, either, but you could have shaved two months off the resolution time by contacting her earlier.) I've had to do this to a bank or two which was under the mistaken impression that I owed them money. Incidentally: a tact I particularly like, since I own shares of essentially any publicly traded stock by dint of owning broad index funds, is to send the letter to Investor Relations. Just say you're a shareholder (you are certainly not the most convoluted situation that results in getting invited to their shareholder meeting) and that you've had a problem, blah blah blah, please fix at your earliest convenience.

siong1987 17y ago

I own a nook myself now. And, used to have kindle. From my experience, kindle is a lot better than nook with just two reasons: 1. Amazon offers more books(especially programming books) than B&N. 2. Amazon offers cheaper books and it doesn't require you to join the Amazon book club. You have to join the B&N Book Club to get cheaper price which is always the same price that you get from Amazon.

sown 17y ago

>We recently received an email from you. However, the email did not include a text message. Kindly re-send your inquiry with a text message so that we may respond to your request. I'm going to remember that one. It was pretty good.

jamesbritt 17y ago
I see something like this and can't but think of how in the world it could happen. I really can't see a person doing this; there must be some wonky code that filters mail. All to make things more efficient.

mscarborough 17y ago

Long story short, early adoption invites a lot of problems. Not to discount the OP's valid issues, but shipping and customer service problems have been evident with most every new hardware release that I can remember. edit: plus at the end of 2009 i noticed that while the local B&N has a big Nook sales kiosk right when you walk in, staffed by a salesperson, when you go to buy a book the big Nook banners behind the sales desk have small 'sold out' banners taped across. obviously a bad sign.

DanielStraight 17y ago

What I still don't get is after stories like this and my own experiences dealing with customer service is why they don't just put one person at the call center who actually has the power to do something. If there was someone there that could make an autonomous decision without needing to ask the computer for permission and physically put a Nook and a $100 gift card on a truck to your house, then we wouldn't have these problems. But no one can. I get the impression that all the people you dealt with were being completely honest. They sympathized but literally couldn't do anything about it, at least not without getting fired. Customer service people who can't do anything are as good as no customer service people at all. I don't understand companies not trusting and giving real power to their customer service agents.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
customer service reps with the power to send out goodies = scam target.
- catzaa 17y ago
  Maybe. But I am sure that if records show that a product is delayed, then the customer service rep should have a bit of leeway to make the customer happy.
- gsmaverick 17y ago
  It seems to me that is not always true. It is well-documented that all Zappos customer reps have to ability to hand out goodies as they see fit.

patio11 17y ago

The ex-CS drone in me winced just reading that. Granted, I think we're probably getting half the story -- my experience with customers that type subject lines like "Help! multiple nook delays and broken promises" is that they are not always the most pain-free to deal with. (The easiest customers to support are the ones who treat it like it is all business. Incidentally, taking this tact has helped me with a megacorp or six over the years.) However, the fact that something even remotely close to that story could happen shows broken CS policies. At my previous employer where I was a CS drone, I could have resolved the issue on any call: "Oh, we promised you a $100 gift card? I'm terribly sorry you haven't received it, sir. Can I make it up to you by issuing a $100 refund to your credit card, which will show on your bank statement within one to three business days?" Or at ANY point in the circus they could have said "I'm sending you a new Nook. It will ship from our warehouse within the hour and be hand delivered by FedEx tomorrow morning. When the first one arrives in a few days, do us a favor and just tell the delivery guy to take it back. Don't worry about the cost: we'll cover all the charges. We're serious about making you happy." Obviously you don't want $8 an hour CS drones making that decision too often, but you can always just trust-but-verify their judgments. (I got flagged by the computer twice for being overly generous. My manager came over to talk to me about it. I said "A customer was unhappy. I resolved the situation." and got a pat on my shoulder. This was in a business with margins so thin you could shave with them, too, rather than high-end electronics which lock people into your purchasing system for life. Crikey, you think they'd fall over themselves trying to get that in his hands.)

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I'm not sure of the etiquette but: tact should be tack, it's an old nautical reference. Only mentioned since you used it twice.
- patio11 17y ago
  Thanks! I've apparently been misusing that my entire life.
  - ars 17y ago

Xixi 17y ago

That reminds me an anecdote when I moved to Paris. I wanted to get DSL, the standard over there with quite many operators to choose from. I choosed Free, because they are cheap (30€ for ~18 Mbps at the time if I remember correctly, TV and phone), and the most innovative player. They also have a reputation of extremely bad customer service... Since I didn't have a phone line (yet), and the previous tenant didn't have a phone line either, the process seemed to be a tad more complicated than usual (for them). Anyway I ended up on the phone with one of their sale rep (obviously not French, my guess would be someone based in Marocco), who told me that it was going to take roughly 4 to 6 weeks to setup the phone line, and then everything would be fine. That's a very long time... but what do you want, they are cheap, and it's France, never expect anything to come fast. 2 months later nothing, not an email, not a phone call, nothing at all. Considering their completely useless customer service abroad, I decided to just forget about them (without canceling anything) and called one of their competitor (Orange, formerly known as France Telecom) : the most expensive, but 1 week later I had phone, TV and 8 Mbps internet for 44€ euros a month. 14€ more than Free, 10 Mbps slower, but at last I could stop "borrowing" my neighbor connection. I never heard about Free again until one year and a half later, when I received an email roughly stating that "there had been an issue and consequently I won't get DSL from them". I will never know what went wrong, but I'm amazed that they reacted after such a long time. I mean, one year and a half... I wonder. After such a long time they should have guessed that I don't care anymore ? What were they thinking ? It was way too late not to look completely ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense to me.

nobosh 17y ago

Sad story but not at all unexpected.