Careful with B&N Classics...

[queentess]

Originally Posted by boswd

sooo how is that Barnes and nobles fault, it's your bank's policy

samething happend to me on my Honeymoon. I forgot to call the bank and let them know I'll be out of the country and will see some purchases. Well half way through the honeymoon, my bank froze my account. Following your logic I should blame Mexico.

Reading Comprehension 101. He's not blaming B&N, he's saying that because of the situation, he chooses to no longer shop there.

Originally Posted by boswd

Also what is stopping anybody from doing a print screen when you are at the checkout completed section.

I hate cluesless mob mentality company bashing. Almost all these gripes are either user error or double standards and ignorance of other company's policy's which are the same as BN's.

drives me crazy.

Clueless mob mentality? Did you hear the one about the over-reacting drama queen? Doing a print screen at the time of checkout doesn't show you the amount that was charged to your card. Explain how this solves anyone's issue?

Originally Posted by boswd

so what does have anything to do with the guys bank freezing his card? How is that Barnes and Noble's fault?

Also Amazon also does single purchase, if you bought 61 one cent purchases on Amazon why wouldn't your bank freeze your card then? I'm assuming your bank doesn't play favorites right?

Again, Reading Comprehension. Amazon doesn't charge me $0.01 for a free book. B&N apparently does (or can; I'm unsure if this was an error or their standard policy).

[boswd]

Originally Posted by queentess

Reading Comprehension 101. He's not blaming B&N, he's saying that because of the situation, he chooses to no longer shop there.


Clueless mob mentality? Did you hear the one about the over-reacting drama queen? Doing a print screen at the time of checkout doesn't show you the amount that was charged to your card. Explain how this solves anyone's issue?


Again, Reading Comprehension. Amazon doesn't charge me $0.01 for a free book. B&N apparently does (or can; I'm unsure if this was an error or their standard policy).

by no longer choosing to shop there would be an indication where the blame is being assigned. And it was his bank that actually caused the situation. not BN.


at the time of checkout it most certainly does tell you the amount. And besides as pointed out you get a confirmation email, egads Amazon does the exact same thing. this is what drive me nuts, the double standards.

I have about 50 free books from BN and not once was I ever charged .01 or $1.99. Never and as see above, I'm not alone.

In most cases when people are complaining in online forums there are usually information that is left out. It's easier to blame the "corporation" then yourself.

Just sayin.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by boswd

by no longer choosing to shop there would be an indication where the blame is being assigned. And it was his bank that actually caused the situation. not BN.

Nope, it's just saying that it's easier to avoid the situation altogether.

Originally Posted by boswd

at the time of checkout it most certainly does tell you the amount.

It didn't for me last time. I will check next time I ever order from them.

Originally Posted by boswd

I have about 50 free books from BN and not once was I ever charged .01 or $1.99 etc. In most cases when people are complaining in online forums there are usually information that is left out. It's easier to blame the "corporation" then yourself.

Just sayin.

You can "just say" all you want, but that doesn't discount the numerous people who HAVE had problems. It doesn't happen to everyone, but it does happen. And since their customer service is sketchy, it's difficult to fix it when it does occur.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I know Koland knows what she's talking about, and if she says she was charged for a free book, she was charged for a free book. It's a known flaw in B&N's system. But I guess it's easier to blame everyone else than question the company you hold so dear.

[boswd]

Yes you're right amazon is god
Known flaw would be saying this happens everytime. It doesnt. Dild an error occur at some point in the past. Idont doubt it. But toindicate this happens all the time is not accurate. Next time your amazon you love so much has a mistake im sure youll be the first one to chime in.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by boswd

Yes you're right amazon is god
Known flaw would be saying this happens everytime. It doesnt. Dild an error occur at some point in the past. Idont doubt it. But toindicate this happens all the time is not accurate. Next time your amazon you love so much has a mistake im sure youll be the first one to chime in.

Who mentioned Amazon? I also didn't mention Sony or Borders or Kobo or WH Smith or Baen. We were only talking about B&N.

[koland]

Originally Posted by boswd

so what does have anything to do with the guys bank freezing his card? How is that Barnes and Noble's fault?

Also Amazon also does single purchase, if you bought 61 one cent purchases on Amazon why wouldn't your bank freeze your card then? I'm assuming your bank doesn't play favorites right?

Because a high number of penny charges (which, btw, should never have been sent thru on free books) will trigger most fraud detection systems. Which puts this squarely in B&N's court in my case, if not his (since, I'll assume, his were higher charges).

And now, Amazon doesn't trigger it (then again, it's an Amazon card that I use, which seems to know that Amazon is an ok vendor, no matter how many stupid, tiny charges I put on it ... including those at a penny).

Why these vendors can't just run an invoice and trigger it when it either gets too old or too high (like Sony and iTunes do and like Amazon does for their other digital purchases, such as music), I don't understand. Amazon already has the infrastructure for it.

Kobo and B&N have both caused problems that I've had to clear with a phone call. Kobo just because it's non-US (had to switch to a different bank card with them, just to get charges to work at all and even then it triggered once due to several small charges in a day), while B&N keeps getting their free book purchases screwed up and charges either full price or a penny; hit several pennies in a row and the card gets locked.

[koland]

Originally Posted by queentess

...
Again, Reading Comprehension. Amazon doesn't charge me $0.01 for a free book. B&N apparently does (or can; I'm unsure if this was an error or their standard policy).

If you check the invoices at B&N, they charge a penny for all free books, but _usually_ discount that a further penny, so that no charge hits your credit card (but a pending authorization for a penny does go thru, which can, again, trigger fraud detection, as well as tie up pennies at a time if you use a debit card).

The problem is, that penny discount they are supposed to use? It doesn't always work, so you get periodic episodes of being charged a penny.

They also will charge you if the book went up in price, even if it shows free on the search page or the product description page (in other words, without any notice) and don't ask you to confirm the charge if it had a "free" buy button (they do confirm, if a price was shown). When they first put books up as free, this seems to sometimes trigger charges by those who buy early and just as the books cease to be free, it happens again -- such as with the B&N classics that were free thru a specific day, then went up in price; they still showed up as free on their promotion page, with "buy now" buttons that didn't ask you about the charge -- but the people who bought late all got charged (yes, I know, they should not have waited, but I'd presume some of them had just found out about it and thought that if it still was showing as free, it should work ... silly them).

[koland]

Originally Posted by boswd

at the time of checkout it most certainly does tell you the amount. And besides as pointed out you get a confirmation email, egads Amazon does the exact same thing. this is what drive me nuts, the double standards.

Not always. That's one reason I hesitate to get free books there, unless not free elsewhere and try to avoid during mornings (let others report problems and get CS to fix them, first) and after midnight (when prices can change in the database that does the billing, but are not reflected on the search or product pages.

With only 50 free books ... you obviously have missed a lot of the problems B&N has had, many of which were last year and with the Kaplan books (if you had, say 200-300, that might put you in the range of hitting some of their issues, but that would still barely put you past christmas, if you pick up all their free, non-smashwords books ... which I don't get from B&N, as apparently when you get too many books, your nook will simply cease to sync and you are forced to delete books until it works again).

[elizilla]

I don't so much mind about the multiple charges when I buy more than one book at a time - I'm trying to not get so far ahead of myself, at least not with books I have to pay for, and this serves as a good reminder. But the problem with doing every book as a separate transaction is this: Ever see the signs at restaurants saying "Minimum Visa charge $5? My friends who run a restaurant tell me that Visa charges the merchant 40 cents for each transaction, plus some percentage of the total. So if I buy four bargain books for $.99 each, and they all go to my credit card, Visa is going to take maybe $1.71 of that money, and the bookstore gets $2.25. If they let me put it in a shopping cart and buy in one transaction, the bookstore would get $3.45 and Visa would get $0.51.

I'd much rather the profit went to the bookstore, so they can stay in business selling ebooks for me! I think Visa gets quite enough of our cash already. I would be willing to go through the shopping cart steps instead of just conveniently using the Buy It Now, so that the bookstore can keep all those 40 cent transaction fees. Especially for Borders who is in trouble and who I like and would like to help!

[boswd]

Originally Posted by koland

If you check the invoices at B&N, they charge a penny for all free books, but _usually_ discount that a further penny, so that no charge hits your credit card (but a pending authorization for a penny does go thru, which can, again, trigger fraud detection, as well as tie up pennies at a time if you use a debit card).

The problem is, that penny discount they are supposed to use? It doesn't always work, so you get periodic episodes of being charged a penny.

They also will charge you if the book went up in price, even if it shows free on the search page or the product description page (in other words, without any notice) and don't ask you to confirm the charge if it had a "free" buy button (they do confirm, if a price was shown). When they first put books up as free, this seems to sometimes trigger charges by those who buy early and just as the books cease to be free, it happens again -- such as with the B&N classics that were free thru a specific day, then went up in price; they still showed up as free on their promotion page, with "buy now" buttons that didn't ask you about the charge -- but the people who bought late all got charged (yes, I know, they should not have waited, but I'd presume some of them had just found out about it and thought that if it still was showing as free, it should work ... silly them).

I call BS on this I have never once been charged a penny for a free book and i just tested out your claim just now and look eeee here nothing is charged to my account.

whatever

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by boswd

I call BS on this I have never once been charged a penny for a free book and i just tested out your claim just now and look eeee here nothing is charged to my account.

whatever

I've never seen a penny charge either, and I was downloading free BN books long before I got my e-reader, and before I started using gift cards, probably at least 100 free books. Same is true of Amazon, never any charges.

And, again, why is BN being dissed for not having a shopping cart when Amazon and Kobo certainly don't use one either?

[boswd]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I've never seen a penny charge either, and I was downloading free BN books long before I got my e-reader, and before I started using gift cards, probably at least 100 free books. Same is true of Amazon, never any charges.

And, again, why is BN being dissed for not having a shopping cart when Amazon and Kobo certainly don't use one either?

I just did three more and again nothing,

as to answer your question of why BN getting dissed and not amazon? that's SOP for this forum Amazon is god. the double standards get quite annoying after a while.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by boswd

I call BS on this I have never once been charged a penny for a free book and i just tested out your claim just now and look eeee here nothing is charged to my account.

Did you check the invoices for your orders in your account at the B&N website? That's where the deducted penny charges usually show up (not always for all the books, it seems).

In any case, I also got hit with what I suspect are the same 60+ unrefunded penny charges as koland's last year, when they had all those McGill-Queen's University Press academic freebies.

I didn't bother contesting the charges since they added up to less than a dollar and I was okay letting them have less than a buck for what I suspected were glitch freebies (unless MGQU was having some sort of Kaplan-like launch promotion) and also it would have probably eaten up more of my time than it was worth to try and get my money back.

I did go and contact them when they charged me for one of the Free Fridays promo books which said $0.00 on the product page, but 5.xx after taxes on the confirmation screen.

[Blossom]

I've never had the penny charges deducted from my Card's balance though I have seen them on the invoices. I know every card is different. However anytime I use my CC there for free books they do $1 authorization charge for first time if I haven't brought anything in a week or so. That goes pending up to a full week. It eventually makes it back into my PP account but if the funds aren't there they take that $1 from my back up source which is my bank account.

The earlier suggestion of adding a gift card to your account sounds like a great idea if that would keep them from messing with the Credit Card completely. I wonder if you do add a gift card do you even need a CC on your account to order the free books?

[koland]

Originally Posted by boswd

I call BS on this I have never once been charged a penny for a free book and i just tested out your claim just now and look eeee here nothing is charged to my account.

whatever

The success that they normally achieve doesn't mean that they do all the time. I've bought more than 300 books from B&N, just counting free books. They do screw up and when they do, it's in a big way (as in, affects hundreds or thousands of people, swamping their customer service and leading to backlogs of several hours for each person to talk to someone who can take care of it). Their customer service is clueless about ebooks, most of the time, and will tell you to delete the free book you were accidentally charged for or you won't get the refund (you don't get the book, either, unless you wait to see the refund, then try it again, if it is still free ... and sometimes their system won't let you rebuy the same book).

Of course, some people require ill fortune to befall them before they will believe it happens to anyone - here's hoping you remain in the dark. Here, though, I have the credit card bills and emailed receipts that show the errors I've run into in the last few months (none from the Kaplan sales, though, as people were getting charges of $3 to over $10 per book and I didn't have enough on my gift card to cover that .. I just keep enough to offset the pennies they decide to take now and then).