10-16-2012, 06:34 PM | #1 |
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Kobo Screws Up Quick Buy
Once again, really bad customer service from Kobo!
Kobo has implemented a new feature on their website when purchasing books: Quick Buy. When purchasing a book (in this case a free book from The Australian newspaper), you press the normal Buy This Book button. Then you get a new popup, asking if you want to 'Use Quick Buy for all eBook purchases'. This is an already checked checkbox. NO EXPLANATION! No nothing. So you click Buy Now. This is the same button you pressed to get to this popup. And how you've always purchased books from Kobo before. And find that you've been charged the FULL PRICE for the book. WITH NO OPPORTUNITY TO ENTER A COUPON CODE! Which is how the free part of the free book offer is being handled. AND KOBO HAS STORED YOUR CREDIT CARD FROM A PREVIOUS PURCHASE. You know, the one you had to enter for every purchase. I never gave Kobo permission to enroll me in Quick Buy. This is like Amazon's One-Click, which Amazon, in the first place is an Opt-In, and in the second place I have turned off. ----- So, now that I've purchased the book, I'm calling Kobo support to get the book refunded. First off, the phone lines are so bad that the call centre people can't understand me. I had to spell KOBO! Then it sounds like they are eating lunch. Then they wanted to know what reader I was using. My reader has gotten no where near the book, this is a Kobo website problem. After about 5 calls, I finally get through on a phone line that the guy can understand me on, explain the situation, he seems unaware that they've implemented something new, asks a superviser, and the refund is REFUSED! So I asked to talk to a superviser. After a few minutes was told that the superviser was busy. I insisted (sorry, I was pretty pissed off at this point, insisted is probably a misnomer). Eventually I got the supervisor, who had heard of the new feature. She at first tried to not refund, but eventually did refund the book. In 3 to 5 days. The Australian offer is for a day only, and the Kobo website is sure that I've already purchased it, so it won't let me purchase it again. The superviser explained that Quick Buy was a new feature to address the concerns of their customers who want an easier way of purchasing books. In other words, this is Kobo's version of a Cart. A single book cart that doesn't let you use discount codes. ----- Basically, Kobo has completely screwed up the implementation of this new 'feature'. They've:
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10-16-2012, 06:36 PM | #2 |
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So if you get stuck with it, how do you undo it?
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10-16-2012, 06:48 PM | #3 |
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Spend half an hour on the phone with Kobo Customer Care (now that's an oxymoron).
The fun bit is that this is a major promotion that one of the major newspapers in Australia is running. I expect that Kobo is going to have a lot of very pissed off customers who were expecting to get free books. |
10-16-2012, 06:50 PM | #4 |
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So, in order to get the free book, I created a new kobo account. This account was created with the Quick Buy feature opted-out.
Which makes sense, as they don't have a stored credit card for the new account. And I can't log into the website in order to check if the Quick Buy feature is set to on or off. |
10-16-2012, 06:54 PM | #5 |
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So when presented with the quick buy option, don't opt-in. Correct?
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10-16-2012, 06:54 PM | #6 |
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I just managed to log into my new account (had to go through the 'purchase' of the free book to get to a logged in Kobo page).
New accounts are Opted-In to Quick Buy. New accounts are Opted-In to receiving emails, even if you unchecked this box when creating the account. |
10-16-2012, 06:56 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
The pop-up has a button for buying the book "Buy Now". It has a link to the standard purchase screen. So, it is completely not obvious what is going on. And, the standard way of doing something like this is to make people Opt-In. Before doing this for the first time, they should have presented another page/pop-up explaining what this new feature was, and getting a confirmation. |
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10-16-2012, 06:58 PM | #8 |
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I'm sorry you've had so much trouble. Thank you for posting about it here. I was able to go to my account online and switch to the original check out options. I appreciate the heads up.
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10-16-2012, 06:59 PM | #9 |
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Yeah, thanks - just went to my account and changed the opt-in from Quick Buy to the Regular Buy that accepts coupons.
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10-16-2012, 07:00 PM | #10 |
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I just went to check out things at Kobo and when I went to buy an eBook, I was not presented with this quick buy screen. I have no idea why not. I tried with two different eBooks.
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10-16-2012, 07:01 PM | #11 |
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And, to make matters worse, in order to opt-out of Quick Buys, I have to enter a First Name, Last Name and Date of Birth on the profile page.
As these are optional fields, there should not be a requirement. And, Kobo is quick happy to believe that I'm 157 years old. |
10-16-2012, 07:03 PM | #12 | |
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Quote:
Check your profile page and see if you have the option. If you haven't purchased from them before, you won't get Quick Buy, as they don't have a credit card stored. |
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10-16-2012, 07:03 PM | #13 |
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I just went and specifically chose not to be part of quick buy.
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10-16-2012, 07:04 PM | #14 |
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It's been a while since I bought anything from Kobo using a credit card. Maybe the card they have on file for me is expired. I buy via PayPal since I don't get charged a transaction fee.
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10-16-2012, 07:16 PM | #15 |
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