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Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:11 pm**

From here.

Two well-dressed, mature people... one of them very pregnant. Obviously small-time scammers of books. I guess we're lucky they didn't want to strip-search her to make sure she was really pregnant.

Edited By GORDON on 1123632085

Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:13 pm**

You got that shifty look.

Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:39 pm**

I remember seing something somewhere where a professional loss prevention manager was saying its easy to stereotype customers and figure out who's stealing and who isn't.

A pregnant couple with a voucher and a large stack of other books they want to buy are most likely NOT trying to scam the store.

I mean, think of the logic behind this: They accuse you of being a thief. Piss you and your wife off. Lose out on all the money from the other books you were going to buy, and lose all your future business. On top of that, they piss off your MIL and probably lose her future business. You might as well throw in all your friends and family who will hear the story, and those who read your site (in today's world, everyone has a voice on the net) as they're likely to avoid the place or at least their vouchers.

All that, to ensure themselves that you don't scam them out of $20, on the off chance that you were a thief.

Yeah, corporate America really has customer service down to a science.

Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:47 pm**

File a complaint with the BBB.
Find corporate, call them.

I guess it's only $20, so it's up to you.

Write a letter to Clyde, Sandra, Terrance and Richard. Copy the manager of the local store. (Scroll down to bottom to get their full names.

Try this address:
Books-A-Million, Inc.
Investor Relations
P.O. Box 19768
Birmingham, AL 35211

and/or this one:
Books-A-Million
Store Operations
P.O. Box 19768
Birmingham, AL 35211

Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:49 pm**

Clyde and I don't go back too far, but I'm guessing that his address is the one near the country club.

Posted: **Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:49 pm**

Find it hard to believe that it was the database. Think it was probably a bunch of dumbasses.

Not the clerks fault. Have to go all the way up the line. I know the store MIL bought at. It will not be there long.

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:18 am**

Find it hard to believe that it was the database. Think it was probably a bunch of dumbasses.

Not the clerks fault. Have to go all the way up the line. I know the store MIL bought at. It will not be there long.

No, I was very calm and polite.... until the second time she suggested I was trying to pull a fast one.

Even then I didn't yell or anything, but I know my voice was getting a bit of an edge.

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:11 am**

2. If you must buy from a brick-and-mortar joint, beware of the piss-poor system security of their voucher system. Or, conversely, use this shoddy system to your own advantage and loiter near the counter listening for people buying book vouchers as gifts, and jot down their phone numbers.

How do you think I pick up women? :laugh:

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:16 am**

How do you think I pick up women?

You dial the service and give them your credit card number?

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:45 am**

Zing!

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 11:07 am**

How do you think I pick up women?
You dial the service and give them your credit card number?

Shit dude, give it a rest! I just got to this area and I'm in an office of people who don't speak english very well.

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:10 pm**

Just got a call from the manager in the Ohio store: he took my address and is shipping me a copy of the book.

He said he is still trying to contact the regional manager to see why we were treated so poorly in the NC store.

Posted: **Fri Jul 22, 2005 1:29 pm**

Very nice. Let's see if they follow up.

If you remember I was working on a front page thing about corporate reactions to their customer's complaints. By far, fast food joints have stunk the place up, while Kroger is a shining example of hwo a customer should be treated.

I've requested they stock three seperate items in the past year and within a month they were stocking that item. Very impressive.

Posted: **Sat Jul 23, 2005 8:41 pm**

So, if I call mine and ask them to put Pasta Bake in at least three different flavors back on the shelves, they will?! Rock on!!!!

Posted: **Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:12 pm**

Within the past few months I've ordered 4 19" Dell monitors (2 for me, 1 for mother-in-law, 1 for parents) as a "small business" account.

Last week they sent me a $25 coupon for "software and peripherals" so I decided to buy a fancy new wireless laser mouse. (like the sharks, but on land). I ordered online, entered the coupon and bang - "Coupon is not valid as conditions for its use are not met. Click on details" I clicked. It said nothing useful other than that my coupon should work. I try entering and re-entering. Nothing.

So I call the # on the coupon they sent me and tried to order a mouse. "I'm sorry, you've got the wrong department" the first guy said after 5 minutes, I got transfered to southeast Asia (Dude sounded Chinese, but may have been Indian). After 10 minutes, I finally get to the "enter coupon" phase. I give him the coupon. After 3 minutes, he says it won't take. I explain the situation, and he says "would you like to order without the coupon?" "No. I want you to make it work." He goes away and 3 minutes later it works. "OK, that will be $36 + shipping and tax" "But the website said free shipping" "It did" "Yes". (pause) "Um, OK - free shipping"

Most painful mouse order ever. Nearly half an hour. I'd almost wager they lost their entire margin on customer service.

Posted: **Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:13 pm**

Just got a call from the manager in the Ohio store: he took my address and is shipping me a copy of the book.

He said he is still trying to contact the regional manager to see why we were treated so poorly in the NC store.

There was a change of plan, and instead I was to go pick up a $20 gift card from the manager of the store down here.

The same manager who gave me a hard time on day-1 happened to be on duty.

She wouldn't leave her office... one of the worker-bees had to go get the gift card.

I spent $23.00 on books, and thus ends my business relationship with Books-A-Million.

Posted: **Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:11 am**

I left Books-A-Million recently. I was a General Manager of one of their so-called "super-stores." Their voucher program is a terribly produced piece of software written by a fool calling himself Cy Fenton, who works in the computer/IT department. Its first use was for Harry Potter V. It was used again for John Grisham, Tom Wolfe, etc. Basically, there are two barcodes: one scanned to sell the voucher, one scanned to redeem the voucher. That's the easy part! In practice, the voucher program likes to take its time verifying a redemption and has crashed due to BAM's poor server management. And, the worst, you can walk into the store and be accused of something you didn't do. I remember my District Mgr would say just give the customer the book and fix the problem later. Other DMs happily encourage the situation you went through; why should they care? They don't have to talk to you!
You're right about BAM. I hate them. I worked 60-80 hour weeks to get things done for $26K/yr. When you finished a task, they set the bar higher, or found a way to punish you for presenting a different point-of-view. I shop at Amazon.com for my books, with a little trip to B&N or Borders every now and then (there's no BAM in my new hometown).

Posted: **Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:28 am**

Speaking of BAM, the wife wanted to pick up Harry Potter VI the other day. She said "lets go to BAM" I said "Gordo said it sucked, let's go to Borders."

We went to Borders.

Posted: **Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:47 am**

From here.

Two well-dressed, mature people... one of them very pregnant. Obviously small-time scammers of books. I guess we're lucky they didn't want to strip-search her to make sure she was really pregnant.

I used to get followed around by security in music stores.
Of course, if I was a security guard I'd follow someone who looked like I did.

I didn't buy much music in places fance enough to have security guard. I'd just go to those stores when friends wanted to go.
I'd check for one or two semi-popular bands, then walk around to give the security guard some exercise. I tried not to make it obvious, but tried to get him to walk as far as possible. It was a good time killer, and I felt like I was sticking it to the man. Well, maybe not sticking it. Maybe... um... giving a Pillsbury to the man.

Welcome to Thunderdome

Books-A-Million sucks.