Borders & Sony eBook Gift Cards?

[jda180]

Hi

Being a UK Sony reader user, I had hoped to buy a few dollars worth of gift cards at Borders at Washington Dulles airport before I cam home from a trip today.

Unfortunatley, though the Borders store in the terminal had cards in stock, the very polite sales assistants had no instructions on how to activate the cards! It was an early flight, so they could only call colleagues at other airport stores - but they couldn't help either!

The cards clearly state that they won't work "unless activated at the register" - so sadly I left the cards behind, and Borders didn't make a sale....

Has anyone else had this experience?

(I'll just have to continue with Books on Board and wait for Waterstones to open...)

Otherwise I'm a happy Sony user..... pleased I can now buy secure pdfs, but would prefer if the publishers whould format for the Sony!

Jonathan

[sononkyo]

That is very unfortunate experience. You should tell the Borders cashier next time to just swipe it in like an EGC (Borders acronym for their own electronic gift cards) and type in the amount indicated on the Sony Reader gift card.

Those Borders employees need a better training manager.

Originally Posted by jda180

Hi

Being a UK Sony reader user, I had hoped to buy a few dollars worth of gift cards at Borders at Washington Dulles airport before I cam home from a trip today.

Unfortunatley, though the Borders store in the terminal had cards in stock, the very polite sales assistants had no instructions on how to activate the cards! It was an early flight, so they could only call colleagues at other airport stores - but they couldn't help either!

The cards clearly state that they won't work "unless activated at the register" - so sadly I left the cards behind, and Borders didn't make a sale....

Has anyone else had this experience?

(I'll just have to continue with Books on Board and wait for Waterstones to open...)

Otherwise I'm a happy Sony user..... pleased I can now buy secure pdfs, but would prefer if the publishers whould format for the Sony!

Jonathan

[jda180]

They would have swiped the ecards - however there was no bar code or UPN number on them...

And no instructions that they could find. They did check in their "product database" but no cards listed, and searched on their employee intranet.

I couldn't fault them for trying - they would have taken cash, however we realised that then the cards would not have been activated.

Better luck next time.

Jonathan

[questionfear]

Originally Posted by sononkyo

That is very unfortunate experience. You should tell the Borders cashier next time to just swipe it in like an EGC (Borders acronym for their own electronic gift cards) and type in the amount indicated on the Sony Reader gift card.

Those Borders employees need a better training manager.

Does Borders still HAVE training managers? When I left there (2 years ago, Borders Superstore Sales Manager), it seemed like anything you couldn't be taught inside of 2 days wasn't worth teaching you. Caused no end to the confusion when we'd be forced to throw a half-trained cashier onto registers at peak time on a Saturday.

[MarciaCat]

Originally Posted by questionfear

Does Borders still HAVE training managers? When I left there (2 years ago, Borders Superstore Sales Manager), it seemed like anything you couldn't be taught inside of 2 days wasn't worth teaching you. Caused no end to the confusion when we'd be forced to throw a half-trained cashier onto registers at peak time on a Saturday.

Every time I've gone in to Borders for a Sony gift card the checker has had to call someone over to show them how to load a gift card. They end up being told it's the same as loading a Borders card. D'OH!! Of course that gave me a chance to explain what a Sony Reader was and how much I love it!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MarciaCat

Every time I've gone in to Borders for a Sony gift card the checker has had to call someone over to show them how to load a gift card. They end up being told it's the same as loading a Borders card. D'OH!! Of course that gave me a chance to explain what a Sony Reader was and how much I love it!

Last time I went into a Borders to get gift cards, the person behind the counter sent someone else upstairs to get the gift cards. Then she rang it up no problem. She even knew what it was I wanted. Way to go Boston!