This post isn’t meant to bash them, but really Kobo? You are really frustrating me !

Friday afternoon, I thought that I would treat myself and buy an eBook.  I had a gift-certificate that was languishing in front of me, and thought why not get an eBook.  This coming from the self proclaimed Book Addict.

I go on over to Kobo, select the one that I wanted, go to checkout.  Enter all of my information, enter the promo ( yeah, they had a promo code for 20% off, EVEN BETTER right?!?) Saving and fueling my addiction even further…

It wouldn’t let me check out….the gift-card covered the price of the book, but wouldn’t for the life of me whatever I attempted wouldn’t let me, even though it had said that entering a credit card or PayPal details weren’t needed.  The big red box even said so, so why wasn’t it letting me buy a book?!?

So, I decided to sign out, clean my cookies out, and reboot my computer.

Let’s try this again, this time it worked as it should seamlessly, checked out with success and downloaded the book I purchased.  At last, A happy book addict getting her fix.

Then Sunday morning, while surfing once again, decided to use the rest of the gift card that was burning a hole in the ole’ pocket so to speak.  I go back to Kobo to buy yet another book, finish off the gift card, add the rest to my PayPal account which was about $2.00 not a big deal right?

Think AGAIN…

Logged in once again, select the book, this time I went to add my gift card details, it was accepted, then go to log into PayPal, an error occurred.  So, I closed my browser, cleaned everything out of it.  I log back in, make the purchase.  Going good so far right…I noticed my email and not one but 2 receipts from PayPal saying that my payment(s) to Kobo had been successful and here are my receipts – one was for $13.14 and the other was for $14.68.

What in the world it was only supposed to be for $2.00 not the above amounts !!  I logged back into my Kobo account, and check my purchase history, the book I just purchased wasn’t even there !!

At this time, I was just so upset.  I checked my gift card balance, and yep they took the money, and yet, I don’t have the book I bought.  I emailed Kobo right away with all the details even taking screenshots of my history.  No receipts from Kobo – they send you one automatically, or at least they should like they have done in the past.

A few hours later, it was really bugging me.  I have heard of other incidents happening when the new Kobo Vox was being introduced and chalked it up to customer demand.  So then I decided to call and see what was going on.  The Representative told me they have had this problem last weekend and that he would get it sorted by sending it to Tier 2 support, he re-assured me that it would be taken care of asap.  He was quite nice, and I felt relieved that I would hear back from someone right away. I did actually go into my Pay Pal account around this time as well to dispute the charges as well.

Today, I checked my bank account – yep, the money for both charges have been taken out, and I still haven’t heard back from kobo.  I called them back to see what was going on.  The nice woman who assisted me told me that they have had this same problem for a few weeks, I went really, she said yes, it happened about 2 weeks ago she said.  All I could think of was that there are probably some angry customers that want satisfaction who have been affected, me among them.

Yes, I can get quite peeved when stuff like this happens, and for good reason.  I had trusted them with my information and account information, but yet, I haven’t heard back from them about my situation.  When it comes to money, I don’t have a lot of it (many don’t nowadays) and when I decide to buy something, especially when it is online, I don’t just go to the first place that offers the item I am looking for.  I do my research, to find the best possible deal for what I am willing to pay for, as well as other stuff.

This situation has just completely let me down in terms of online shopping.  I mean if a certain company is having issues when it comes to what they offer in terms of payments, shouldn’t they alert people if they are experiencing difficulties? Even if it is a small issue?  I would think they should.  But obviously in this case they didn’t.  I am upset at that.  I believe and many of you may disagree, but they should have something on their website that says – “We are experiencing difficulties, please be patient as we are working on them to better serve you”  Just so that people are made aware, so that they can make an informed  decision to make that purchase or not.  This didn’t happen here.

When I initially contacted Kobo with this issue, I had told them that in no uncertain terms would I accept anything less than a full refund plus any fees that my bank charges me ( they ended up charging me NSF fees) because I only placed the exact amount in that account for the rest that I owed to go through PayPal.  So now I am out about $100 for those fees plus the $27.82 that they over charged me in the first place.

Do you think that I am over asking for something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place? I don’t think I am.

Companies today at least from what I have experienced don’t care about the customer service anymore.  If I had this similar situation happen say 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been a question if the company cared, they would have gone and done the right thing.  Now it seems as though they just want you the customer to buy what they have and after that it’s thanks for your money, but we can’t help you with anything else, so you are out of luck.  I don’t think it is right for any company to think they can get away with any sort of this sort of attitude.

When I was spoke to the Rep tonight I said do you think this is right, she replied absolutely not. I bought from Kobo thinking that since it is still a Canadian Company, it would hold the same values that I have…I will have to re-think that from now on.  I don’t believe that I will be making any further purchases from them ever, or at least from the time being until I hear back from their Tier 2 Customer Support or anyone from the company that is to my satisfaction.

Has something like this happened to you recently with Kobo?  I would love to hear of anyone else this has happened to.  Will you go back to using their service?

I believe that Kobo should also streamline their checkout as well, but letting you add more then one book to your cart, instead of having to purchase one book at a time.  Maybe it is because it is a company that sells just eBooks, but it takes twice the time to purchase what you want.  I just hope that they call me tomorrow, otherwise I’m really going to have a few choice words for them !