Classic eBook Purchase Problems

qpid360 · 12-10-2009, 03:49 PM

Definitely not a good first purchase experience.

I'm at school and downloaded the sample for "The Lovely Bones". After finishing the sample, I purchased the book, it went through and refreshed. I even got the receipt for it. However, the book still only goes to the last page of the sample even though the book isn't labled 'sample' anymore. I called B&N and got transferred three times, spent half an hour on the phone, no solutions. Now I have to wait until I can get home to see if I can delete the book while it's connected to the computer.

BTW, the eBook works fine on the B&N Reader app on my iPhone.

howdoin · 12-10-2009, 04:36 PM

Different experience but my first purchased book (The Atlantis Code) was 349 pages of.... nothing!!! just a white screen.

Called BN and sofar nothing as they do not seem to believe me: book was paid, downloaded but all the pages are blank.

I have several other eBooks now on the device and they all work fine so it is not a problem with the Nook but with the book itself... this does not bode well for the future so far.

qpid360 · 12-10-2009, 09:41 PM

I tried the suggestion to delete the book manually while connected. However, after downloading it again, it still does the same thing.

edit: been on the phone with tech support for 40 minutes. no solution. i asked for a refund and i was told that since my iphone can read the book fine, they can't give me credit. i told them that's what i got the nook for and don't use a phone to read a book. kinda defeats the purpose of me spending $259 for their device.

absolutely ridiculous

so far, i'm very disappointed

edit 2: refund was approved but now i would have to purchase the book again just to see if the problem will still occur. major fail in b&n's part seriously.

edit 3: omg. a hard reset finally did it. i told tech support that i should try that because it seemed the nook was reading from a cached file rather than the newer file, but i was told not to. pisses me off when u think of solutions and tech support can't.

Trubu · 12-11-2009, 12:36 AM

Definitely some issues with the purchasing system. I got the nook for my wife for Christmas and was setting it up tonight, adding pictures, joining our home wifi network, transferring some Calibre-formatted epubs - I was pretty impressed with the device, right up to the point that I went on BN.com and bought two books. The first (an epub) had the above-mentioned problem - 800+ of blank white pages. The second (a PDB) refused to open because there was "a problem with my credentials," and it refused to take what I KNOW is the correct name/CC number. Really leaves a terrible taste in your mouth, especially compared to the Kindle, which already had my purchased content sitting there before I even got it out of the box.

There are a lot of things I really like about the nook, but the #1 most important feature - ease of purchasing - has been total fail so far. Hope I can get find a resolution before Christmas Eve so this gift doesn't turn out to be a lemon.

qpid360 · 12-11-2009, 01:06 AM

Yeah I know what you mean about leaving a bad taste. Hopefully all these issues will be resolved soon. I know it's not really fair for me to compare the nook to the Kindle 2 because it's been out for a while with updates but B&N certainly need to catch up.

Trubu · 12-11-2009, 11:37 AM

Looking at the B&N boards, the "blank book" problem is apparently being worked on. Still no joy on the PDB front, though - I've tried archiving/unarchiving the book, manually deleting/redownloading, a hard reset of the nook, and finally changing the default CC number on the account and redownloading, and nothing works to get the book to unlock. It works fine on the B&N desktop and iPhone software, though, so clearly it's a nook-specific issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by qpid360

Yeah I know what you mean about leaving a bad taste. Hopefully all these issues will be resolved soon. I know it's not really fair for me to compare the nook to the Kindle 2 because it's been out for a while with updates but B&N certainly need to catch up.

Having been an early adopter for a long time, I was expecting some speedbumps with the nook, and I'm perfectly content to wait for firmware updates to improve some of the more unpolished aspects (speed, touchscreen responsiveness, etc). However, I really wasn't expecting the device to fail at its most basic function - allowing me to read books that I purchased and downloaded from their store! Making it as easy and painless as possible for people to access the content they paid for is the absolute bedrock foundation for a good ereader, and I thought it was the one area that B&N would make sure was really solid before release. My mistake, I guess.

I hope they get these purchasing issues resolved quickly, because mainstream consumers will be really turned off by the kind of experience I've had so far.

Trubu · 12-12-2009, 01:06 AM

Well, talked to customer service tonight - once I was able to get through. Choosing "2" in the automated menu gave me a message that all agents were busy, and when I was transferred to hold, I got a message that "the number I had called was invalid" and the call disconnected (three times in a row). I finally got to the general help line and they transferred me to a customer service rep immediately, no waiting.

The rep I spoke to was very friendly and actually sounded like she knew what she was talking about - I explained the situation and she acknowledged that they're aware of both of the problems I'm having. In fact, she claimed that the unlock failure with pdbs has been reported more than the blank epubs, though I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet.

Anyway, she took my order numbers and escalated both of them and said someone will contact me when fixed files are posted. She also said "You're not doing anything wrong, it's just corrupted files." So, at least they're aware of the problems and are working on them. While it didn't solve my immediate problem, I was glad I didn't get the runaround. +1 B&N.

12-10-2009, 09:41 PM	#3
qpid360 e-reading :) Posts: 30 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Pasadena, CA Device: Sony Reader Pocket Edition, Barnes & Noble nook	I tried the suggestion to delete the book manually while connected. However, after downloading it again, it still does the same thing. edit: been on the phone with tech support for 40 minutes. no solution. i asked for a refund and i was told that since my iphone can read the book fine, they can't give me credit. i told them that's what i got the nook for and don't use a phone to read a book. kinda defeats the purpose of me spending $259 for their device. absolutely ridiculous so far, i'm very disappointed edit 2: refund was approved but now i would have to purchase the book again just to see if the problem will still occur. major fail in b&n's part seriously. edit 3: omg. a hard reset finally did it. i told tech support that i should try that because it seemed the nook was reading from a cached file rather than the newer file, but i was told not to. pisses me off when u think of solutions and tech support can't. Last edited by qpid360; 12-10-2009 at 10:25 PM.

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12-10-2009, 03:49 PM	#1
qpid360 e-reading :) Posts: 30 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Pasadena, CA Device: Sony Reader Pocket Edition, Barnes & Noble nook	eBook Purchase Problems Definitely not a good first purchase experience. I'm at school and downloaded the sample for "The Lovely Bones". After finishing the sample, I purchased the book, it went through and refreshed. I even got the receipt for it. However, the book still only goes to the last page of the sample even though the book isn't labled 'sample' anymore. I called B&N and got transferred three times, spent half an hour on the phone, no solutions. Now I have to wait until I can get home to see if I can delete the book while it's connected to the computer. BTW, the eBook works fine on the B&N Reader app on my iPhone.

12-10-2009, 04:36 PM	#2
howdoin Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: PRS-505	Different experience but my first purchased book (The Atlantis Code) was 349 pages of.... nothing!!! just a white screen. Called BN and sofar nothing as they do not seem to believe me: book was paid, downloaded but all the pages are blank. I have several other eBooks now on the device and they all work fine so it is not a problem with the Nook but with the book itself... this does not bode well for the future so far.

12-11-2009, 12:36 AM	#4
Trubu Zealot Posts: 148 Karma: 503 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindle 2, Nook, iPhone 3GS, iPad	Definitely some issues with the purchasing system. I got the nook for my wife for Christmas and was setting it up tonight, adding pictures, joining our home wifi network, transferring some Calibre-formatted epubs - I was pretty impressed with the device, right up to the point that I went on BN.com and bought two books. The first (an epub) had the above-mentioned problem - 800+ of blank white pages. The second (a PDB) refused to open because there was "a problem with my credentials," and it refused to take what I KNOW is the correct name/CC number. Really leaves a terrible taste in your mouth, especially compared to the Kindle, which already had my purchased content sitting there before I even got it out of the box. There are a lot of things I really like about the nook, but the #1 most important feature - ease of purchasing - has been total fail so far. Hope I can get find a resolution before Christmas Eve so this gift doesn't turn out to be a lemon.

12-11-2009, 01:06 AM	#5
qpid360 e-reading :) Posts: 30 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Pasadena, CA Device: Sony Reader Pocket Edition, Barnes & Noble nook	Yeah I know what you mean about leaving a bad taste. Hopefully all these issues will be resolved soon. I know it's not really fair for me to compare the nook to the Kindle 2 because it's been out for a while with updates but B&N certainly need to catch up.

12-12-2009, 01:06 AM	#7
Trubu Zealot Posts: 148 Karma: 503 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindle 2, Nook, iPhone 3GS, iPad	Well, talked to customer service tonight - once I was able to get through. Choosing "2" in the automated menu gave me a message that all agents were busy, and when I was transferred to hold, I got a message that "the number I had called was invalid" and the call disconnected (three times in a row). I finally got to the general help line and they transferred me to a customer service rep immediately, no waiting. The rep I spoke to was very friendly and actually sounded like she knew what she was talking about - I explained the situation and she acknowledged that they're aware of both of the problems I'm having. In fact, she claimed that the unlock failure with pdbs has been reported more than the blank epubs, though I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet. Anyway, she took my order numbers and escalated both of them and said someone will contact me when fixed files are posted. She also said "You're not doing anything wrong, it's just corrupted files." So, at least they're aware of the problems and are working on them. While it didn't solve my immediate problem, I was glad I didn't get the runaround. +1 B&N.

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