Story of the Day 6/ 15/ 2014

My kid asked me if her textbook had come.
We ordered it almost 2 weeks ago.

Her calculus text ( ordered at the same time) came, and the companion book- and she has been working away at the problems, but her Biology textbook seems to be coming via a slow boat from China.
I went into my Amazon account to see if there was a tracking number for the package.
There wasn't. Instead, there was a mysterious message. The message said that the order had been "Cancelled."

It was cancelled?
I didn't cancel it, and I clicked for the explanation and there wasn't one.

Normally, when there is a problem, I have received an email from Amazon telling me that the item is now " out of print" or "out of stock."
Eventually, the money either gets refunded to my card or , if I am very lucky, they have cancelled it before the charge went through and there is no waiting for a month to have it credited to our account.

When I get a notice that something is cancelled, assuming it something we actually need,
like a textbook for one of my kids' classes or a Mother's Day gift,
I go back and find the same or almost the same item and make a new order.

But, that didn't happen, this time.

It didn't happen because I didn't get a notice that the order had been cancelled.
So now, when wit is needed, we dint' have it.

There was also no information on my account that indicated it had been cencelled right after the order was made, or , perhaps, early this morning.
I am far from perfect, so far that I cringed and thought, " I must have overlooked that email."
So I checked my inbox.
Nothing.

I checked my junk /spam box.
Nothing.

I had this idea I might have accidentally deleted it, so I checked the deleted file.
Nothing.

Apparently, I was supposed to know that it had been canceled because of my very well developed telepathy.
Only I don't' have that, either.

I spent a long time looking for another copy.
The copy we had ordered had been $30, for a new, somewhat dinged copy, with an intact access code.

If you have not been a college student during the last decade, or have a kid making their way through college, you might not know what an access code is.
It is a code that comes with the textbook.
It allows the student to access things like homework and quizzes, online. And to then submit them electronically.
Some professors do not like that and request the old fashioned stuff- an email.
Or the really really old fashioned stuff,
like the work on a memory stick or even, gasp, printed out.
Yes, on real paper.

But most math and science classes use an access code systems.

So, I have spent quite a while looking at various textbooks- the same textbook we had ordered, but different copies frm different vendors.

I am cheap, so I started with the used textbooks.

Many of them, not most, not half, not a quarter,
but since there were 1,186 used copies, a large number were actually listed as " New" but slightly damaged , or had shelf wear or something of the sort.
And they all were priced much cheaper than the new copies.
So, I started sending messages and asking each of the sellers if the access kit/code was unused.

You see, the code can only be used by one student, so, while you can sell your used textbook, you cannot sell the code , once you have used it.

Why would this be a concern with a book listed as " New"?
Because , as one seller emailed me back , " I don't' know, it looks new, but I bought it with a group of other books from a storage unit."
Or , another seller who told me that the book was new , " but the access kit had been opened"
And another who told me that the access code was missing.

So, I went to the copies listed as new for quite a bit more money, and started sending messages to those sellers.
Again, the first response stated that " the access kit looks as if it has been opened."

Frustration .
Then, back to the computer, after dinner, trying to get this book.

I also decided to contact Amazon.
I sent them a message that I felt this was dismal customer service, not to have let me know the order was cancelled.
Was I supposed to wait and wait while my kid didn't have a textbook for her class, thinking it was coming any day now?

A while later, Amazon's customer service emailed me .
They let me know that they were sorry I was disappointed, but they HAD emailed me that the order was cancelled.
They gave me the date of the email.


I had already checked, but I went back again and rechecked my inbox, my junk/spam folder, my deleted folder.
Nothing.
Absolutley nothing on that date or the day after.
I checked the later date since, occasionally, an email will be held up. Something I have never exactly figured out.
What makes an email occasionally take half a day to arrive? I would probably have to go to graduate school to figure that one out...

Irritated to have been lied to, I contacted Amazon, again.
I requested a phone call, since I had a very bad review of their service.

Amazingly, they called me less than minute later.

Brook took my name and my email address, and then she disconnected me.
I waited, but she did not call me back.
And she obviously had my number, since she had called me.

Back to the website; again, I requested a call.

This time Cocco called. I told her that I was very irritated.
I was irritated because I had been lied to and hung up on, and I told her the whole long story.
She was apologetic.
She checked, they had sent the email. Oh, wait, maybe they hadn't.
I could have told her that.
Oh, wait, I did.

She wants to know what they can do to help. can they locate a copy for me?
"No!"
I explain about the access code.

It is not good enough to get book, even with a "new" book you need the code or you have just wasted your time and money .
I had to explain what the access code was, and why new copies would be missing it.
In fact, I told her, there was a small business, a little enterprise in just selling the codes.
Only, it wasn't all that little.

She brightened up upon hearing this.
She told me that, in that case, Amazon probably sold them and she could locate that for me.
I had to burst her enthusiastic bubble by explaining it was a business that usually represented a kind of theft and I did most definitely NOT want to buy an access ceode without a book.
Yes, some were valid, not products of theft, but since I couldn't' know for sure, and a lot were, I did not want to support that "industry".

And, as for getting a textbook, I only wanted one with the code; and her locating copy was useless without knowing if the access code was intact.

She looked over the emails I had been sending through her system asking sellers if they had the access code to go with the book.
She was amazed.
I'd had a host of replies to my inquiries from the sellers of "new" books that these texts no longer had intact access codes, or that they didn't know.
I explained to her the few ways that I know by which the codes can get separated from new books.
I explained how you even had to be careful buying copy a new from a reputable bookstore.
Students had been known to buy the book and return it , still new, the next day- just missing the access code, or with the access kit opened and the code used or about to be used.

It makes me long for paper workbooks.

It does not make me long for Amazon.

At the end of the evening, I am still upset about the email they hadn't sent.
I told her that if they had said, "Oh gosh, we goofed and didn't send an email letting you know it was cancelled!" I would have understood that.
I also understood that sometimes things are sold that do not exist- they have been actually already sold or removed from stock for some other reasons, and that is life.

I told her that I normally check Amazon out first when looking for things like this to buy, but I think that i will not be doing this.
I also told her that I will be writing story about this for my blog in the hopes that,
by the time I have reached the end of writing it,
the incident will seem humorous.

Except it still doesn't.