Bad customer service experience with Kobo

[jessicalynn]

I don't work for Kobo either and I also think expecting them to just give you a $50 dollar gift card is plainly ridiculous. Also, I have a mother and if something like this happened to me I would have just called her and explained that the website glitched and she was only supposed to receive one gift card. My mom is a nice, reasonable lady, and I know she would understand. I just don't see the big deal.
But then again if the attitude and personality you're showing here have anything to do with how you were raised I'm guessing your mom isn't as nice and reasonable as mine is.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by unicorn1

Read the post. She received 2 gift cards. It is exhausting trying to explain anything to you people. Carry on.

I thought you were done with this.

Your basic complaint is that your mother figured out how much you intended to spend. Which it is literally impossible for her to not figure out if she ever actually used the gift certificate. Or perhaps it's that you didn't get something for free.

I've worked in retail my entire adult life. Most of it at management levels and above. I currently work in the corporate office of a retail chain that is part of a national franchise that everyone would recognize. My employer is one of the franchisees the national office studies to develop their best practices guidelines for other dealers, because we're good at what we do.

And I gotta say, based on 30+ years experience in retail, you're the sort of customer that most retailers sincerely hope will simply go away and not come back. Interacting with you is frustrating and irritating, because you are never happy with anything. And you expect Kobo to lose money for the privilige of your business. You're simply not worth the trouble. The old adage is that 80% of your problems are caused by 20% of your customers, and if you get rid of that 20%, you'll double your profits. You're part of the 20%.

[Blossom]

When I buy a gift card it takes over 30/45 minutes to have it go through and sent to me. In fact getting a invoice for ebooks purchases takes just that long as well. The only time I ever got a email from them within minutes was that 10% off spin to win coupon thing.

I am convinced they use a different credit card processor for gift cards as they always go through differently then ebook purchases on my Card.

It doesn't look like it was an issue on their end other then a issue with your credit card. Anytime you get a message like that don't try it again. Go immediately to your Credit Card issuer's site and see if the transaction has been made if so then wait a few hours to see if the purchase went through or not. If the charge went through but you received nothing from the online retailer then contact their customer service to see if they have more info.

To expect to see an additional $50 credit is well a little out of the ordinary not to mention no one there has that kind of power to do that there. You have to get really high up to get something like that and that can take weeks. Billing is known to take their time when issuing refunds but I doubt even they have the kind of power to give away free money. The best you could hope for is a coupon for $3 off or something like that.

I had similar happen when paying bills. Did I get my money back or compensated? Nope. They gave me credit on next month's bill from the money they took. You learn fairly quickly when it comes to credit cards to be more careful when using them with online scripts and never run a transaction through twice unless you absolutely sure the first didn't go through.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

I agree with Worldwalker. If you went to any store and bought an item and were charged twice because the cashier wasn't paying attention, do you then get credited the amount and given a second item? No. You're given a credit back to your card and you leave.

If the cashier says "I'm sorry; that won't go through," and re-bills you, the cashier can't bill you again and sneak an extra item into your cart. If she does, the second is a gift--you only authorized one payment.

In this case, Kobo owes her the free card--she authorized purchase of *one* card. If Kobo wanted to cancel the extra, they should've sent out an email saying "we accidentally sent you a second gift card, which won't work" rather than leaving it up to the person they charged to explain Kobo's glitch.

[Pushka]

Yes Kobo did the wrong thing, but your mother will understand. Really.

[unicorn1]

post removed

[Worldwalker]

Elf, you're usually right, but you missed something this time.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

If the cashier says "I'm sorry; that won't go through," and re-bills you, the cashier can't bill you again and sneak an extra item into your cart. If she does, the second is a gift--you only authorized one payment.

Except the cashier didn't do that. According to what the OP said, she (the OP, that is) conducted the transaction twice -- once believing it didn't work (though not checking it), and once believing it did.

Hold on, something just struck me....

Kobo's email (as quoted by the OP) said that the "purchases happened less than 1 second apart."

The first purchase attempt didn't go through. The "try again later" response was totally accurate, and it wouldn't have appeared in the OP's account because it had, in fact, failed. The first transaction is entirely off the table -- the script correctly reported that, for whatever reason (usually the CC clearinghouse being overloaded) it didn't go through. It was the second purchase that generated the two cards. I would guess, having dealt with this stuff on the other end, that the OP wanted to make sure that the transaction "really worked" this time, and instead of clicking the "buy now" button (or whatever Kobo uses; I really haven't seen their website) once, and waiting, she clicked it twice, thereby triggering the script twice -- and buying two cards. This is why you wait for the site to do its stuff (watching your status bar is important) and why some sites warn you not to click that button more than once. That's the only way I can think of that there would be two transactions that close together, because it takes longer than that to load an error page and go back -- if the first attempt had gone through, there would have been more of a gap. The first one really did fail.

So, in other words, this is a PEBKAC error. Customer clicked "buy" twice. Customer bought twice. This doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to -- sales scripts are more robust nowadays -- but it does still happen, as this whole thread demonstrates. The standard response from any retailer is to refund one of the erroneous purchases. This is what Kobo did.

In this case, Kobo owes her the free card--she authorized purchase of *one* card.

There is no way for Kobo to know that, though. She may not have wanted to authorize the purchase of two cards, but that's what she actually did. And all Kobo can react to is what she did, not what she was thinking. When she told them she only wanted to buy one card, they un-sold her the other. Sounds reasonable to me. If I accidentally buy two of anything from an online retailer, they're only obliged to give me a refund for the one I didn't want, not to give it to me for free. (if the latter was the case, I'd be frantically double-clicking on "buy" buttons for wide-screen TVs!)

If Kobo wanted to cancel the extra, they should've sent out an email saying "we accidentally sent you a second gift card, which won't work" rather than leaving it up to the person they charged to explain Kobo's glitch.

Well, most places leave it up to the person who bought two of something and only wanted one to explain to the recipient that they were only supposed to get one, not two, of whatever-it-was. Normally, people don't get upset if they don't get twice the gift they expected, and I'm sure Kobo doesn't expect to have to dissemble to prevent such unexpected anger.

But in any event, it wasn't Kobo's glitch -- the first transaction didn't work. It correctly reported that it had failed. It was the user's error during the second transaction which caused it to be processed twice (and Kobo is far from the only site ever to see this). The customer accidentally processed an order twice, then said she only wanted one, so Kobo cancelled the other. Business as usual all over the Web. Kobo has no more obligation to give her a free $50 than Best Buy has to give me a free TV is I click "buy" twice there.

I can't believe I'm defending Kobo here. I'm not surprised CWatkinsNash was afraid he had brain damage. But, well, you know what they say about stopped clocks.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I'm not surprised CWatkinsNash was afraid he had brain damage. But, well, you know what they say about stopped clocks.

I'm a she.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I'm a she.

I've gotta read profiles more.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Except the cashier didn't do that. According to what the OP said, she (the OP, that is) conducted the transaction twice -- once believing it didn't work (though not checking it), and once believing it did.

Hold on, something just struck me....

Kobo's email (as quoted by the OP) said that the "purchases happened less than 1 second apart."

The first purchase attempt didn't go through. The "try again later" response was totally accurate, and it wouldn't have appeared in the OP's account because it had, in fact, failed.

If the first attempt didn't go through, then the double-purchase is likely an accidental double-click, and not Kobo's fault (although they still should not have deleted the card sale; they need customer service reps who can tell the difference between "I'm unhappy with this purchase" and "I demand a refund.")

If, however, the first purchase hung in the system and didn't complete until the second one was made, then it's Kobo's fault, and they should eat the cost for the extra card.

I don't speak software; cannot imagine how one would resolve this. Good customer service would involve "oh, hell, just give her the damn card"--because as it stands, she's not likely to buy more cards in the future for other family members, and neither are they. $50 is generally within the range of costs for keeping a cluster of happy customers.

[Fbone]

I would think that major web retailers would have safeguards in place to prevent double click purchases. Two purchases in less than a second should always be considered an unintentional error.

[Catlady]

Something else that seems to have been missed: the OP's original request to Kobo was indeed to cancel the second gift card--though she wanted it done without her mother knowing.

Kobo couldn't do it without her mother knowing, but they did go ahead and cancel, because that was indeed the only specific instruction they had from the OP--the rest of it seems to be demands for things they could not do, like give her the second card for free.

Can't believe we're still talking about this!

Edit: Here's the quote from the OP's first message:

So I immediately got on the phone with their toll free number and tried to explain to the person on the other end was it possible to cancel one without my mom knowing.

[wyndslash]

@catlady: that's what i thought too, then i just got confused :| my initial understanding was that a mistake had been made, the OP asked the CS to cancel one of the cards (she did ask the question), and the only logical solution to return the credit was to cancel the card! what am i missing? i mean, i got confused when i read that she still wanted the card...?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by unicorn1

I had really hoped to be done with this but

you keep coming back, trying to justify yourself, and getting angry that nobody is buying it. You will not ever convince anyone that you are entirely blameless and deserve free money, so give up.

[vulcan_girl]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I would think that major web retailers would have safeguards in place to prevent double click purchases. Two purchases in less than a second should always be considered an unintentional error.

When I'm paying bills and ordering things online, sites regularly have windows advising you not to click more than once AND not to refresh the the browser for this very reason.

It's not like there are two orders with the same transaction number that would flag it as being a duplicate. I bet high volume sites process several orders between the double clicks.

It took several readings to understand what happened and I can't see the reasoning behind not wanting your mother to know the second card was a mistake.