Thanks for Nothing.......
Dear Dymocks Online Customer Service
I have been struggling with your online digital download facility since Thursday last week.
I ordered two books. Lakatos downloaded
The other – Theories of Scientific Progress was the most important one for an history and philosophy essay due (now) in two days. It stubbornly refused to download – and then your web download server went guts up and coughed error messages all over my screen.
I sent a message to online support last Friday. No reply.
Yesterday I phoned George St – since there is no published online support call number. They put me through to Charlie’s answering machine.
Four hours later Charlie phoned me and apologised. I asked if he could simply Email me the PDF file that I have already paid for. He said he would get back to me within one hour.
But there has been no return call and no resolution of the problem.
So I went back to the Email below and tried the link for the second download.
Miracle – it worked !
No. Just kidding. It downloaded the first book a second time.
Then I noticed that the link in your Email is the same for both files.
Nice.
I will offer you two options:
1. The preferred option. Please send me the PDF today at the latest, or
2. Cancel the transaction, refund the money and see the whole episode posted up on my website tomorrow.
You can find us at www.pigsarms.com.au –
It’s a website for people who typically like to read books – we get between 300 and 600 visits a day. We have had over 4,000 comments since we went live in May.
Over to you.
Mike Jones
This article was not mine. It’s Mike’s and it even has his name on it. So I’m not at all sure why it’s posted here in my archive. indeed the only possible link to me is the Lakatos reference. I was, many years ago, an avid reader of Lakatos.
That having been said, I’m a bit old fashioned and like my books real not virtual so I would never actually use Dymocks online service. In fact I haven’t been into a Dymocks store for years, and years. There are simply far better bookshops to wander around in.
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I was tagging my stories yesterday, and found Dymock’s Online story under Helvi Oosterman. It did not worry me as it is better than any of mine ; I thought it was just a common human mistake. I believe Mike and HOO have been busy tidying up Pigs Arms 🙂
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oops, that’s H, not G
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Well hello to someone else who has to deal with Dymocks online and their questionable services. I too am in negotiations with Charlie (he of the no return phone call) and have yet to get my refund.
Here is the rub tho, as I purchased with a gift card they probably going to refund in gift card form. The joke is why would I go back when they obviously don’t provide me with what I want!
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Welcome to the Pig’s Arms, Mos.
Yes, I only tried to use them to help one of the Emmlets quickly get to a key reference for a Uni assignment – by trying to buy a E-book copy. I reckon I could have walked to England and scored a copy faster. Ultimately they DID sort it out, but I’ve reverted to Glebe Books here in Sydney, also http://www.betterworldbooks.com are cheaper – and a lot cheaper shipping from the US than Amazon. Give them a go !
regards,
Emmjay
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I’m probably one of a diminishing number of troglodytic neo-Lluddites who still distrust the internet as a medium for transacting business… I just don’t trust it enough to put any information such as my bank account number on my computer.
Mike, I sympathise with your plight, but I must observe that stories such as this one do not encourage me to change my mind about the relative safety and security of online business transactions.
Unless and until the safe completion of such online transactions can be guaranteed, I shall simply continue to refuse to do business online.
More power to your elbow, Mike, for exercising your rght to complain… except that I would say it is not so much a ‘right’ to complain, as it is a social duty! So ‘g’donya’ for doing your duty, Mike… I’m sure Chomsky would agree!
🙂
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M: I want to complain.
C: You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I’ve only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through.
M: No, I want to complain about…
C: If you complain nothing happens, you might as well not bother.
M: Oh!
C: Oh my back hurts, it’s not a very fine day and I’m sick and tired of this office.
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MC=E
(In round numbers)
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It seems the world is relatively square though!
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I am still in café mode. Soon I must get back to work to earn the chocolate éclair with fresh cream. Then I must walk to earn the sample banana cake. I don’t how how I’m going to pay for the sausage roll sample though. Through not being able to fit into my good clothing probably.
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Gerard
I cannot believe the rubbish people still peddle about parallel importation restrictions. Let alone the fact that they do not understand them.
To be clear: PIRs prevent Australian booksellers from bringing in the same product which can be sourced cheaper overseas. Who does this benefit? Two people: the authors and the publishers. The book buying public have to bear the cost to subsidise authors and publishers. As for Dymocks being the only one – what a load of tripe. Anyone who is aware of the debate is now aware that all major retailers (Coles, Woolworths, RedGroup (A&R and Borders) and Dymocks all support removal of PIR. In addition, the Australian Booksellers Association is unanimously behind a solution proposed by Dymocks in relation to retaining PIRs but on a limited basis. I don’t defend Dymocks customer service but I do at least give them credit for trying to help the buying public. Sure there is a benefit to them – suprisingly cheaper books leads to more books being bought but at least they are upfront with the benefit they will get. Not like the publishers and authors who claim to protect Australian literature whilst, in reality, padding their own pockets.
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What about this then from ‘Crickey’.?
Dymocks: throwing the book at parallel importing
by Jeff Sparrow
The economist John Maynard Keynes once explained that the free market rested on “the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”.
The book chain Dymocks might not be wicked but there’s something a little coy about its current campaign for the parallel importation of books into Australia. Parallel importation would allow booksellers to import overseas editions, irrespective of whether they’d already been published in Australia. It’s a measure resisted by most authors and all Australian publishers, who fear that exposure to open market will wipe out the local industry. Interestingly, parallel importation’s also opposed — and for similar reasons — by the Australian Booksellers Association as well as by the majority of its individual members.
Dymocks presumably calculates that its size will provide a competitive advantage when it comes to dumping discounted or remaindered overseas books on the Australian market. But that’s not the kind of argument that carries much public weight. So when former NSW Premier Bob Carr writes on parallel importation for the Oz, he doesn’t say: look, I’m on the board of Dymocks, and this proposal will make me and my mates a lot of money. Instead, he explains that Adam Smith’s invisible hand, protector of readers the world over, will rest its sainted palm on working class kids and transform them into lovers of literature.
Now in the midst of a GFC, most people feel less than confident about entrusting the cultural development of their children to the same free market that just destroyed their retirement, and so despite the best efforts of Dymocks and Mr Carr, there’s been little public enthusiasm for parallel importation: of the 268 submissions received by the Productivity Commission, some 260 opposed the idea
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Emm,
You must be jesting.
I won’t tell Scribe or the Australian Authors Association that you are dealing with about the only one now still defending parallel imports of books; Dymocks.
I am not spending forty cents on that lot. Throw a book at them.
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You’re kidding, aren’t you Gez ?
Only Dymocks standing in the way of a fair deal for book buyers ?
Maybe next time I’ll just have to check out one of the big US PDF suppliers.
Maybe their sites actually work !
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Here is something opposing Dymocks’ attempt to corner the market.
Quote Scribe Publishers
• the commission has received 268 submissions to its inquiry, of which around 260 oppose the idea;
• in a historic shift, most booksellers — the supposed beneficiaries of parallel imports — have dropped their support for the proposal: around 65 per cent of booksellers by market share now oppose the idea, including the Australian Booksellers Association and the Leading Edge group of independent booksellers;
• every publisher opposes the idea — from the largest multinational to the smallest independent — and many of them have submitted lengthy, detailed, and well-argued explanations for their stance;
• apart from universal rejections from authors and literary agents, even the Copyright Agency thinks it’s a very bad idea; and
• there are only two substantial submissions in favour of the idea: from the so-called Coalition for Cheaper Books, which is a front run by Dymocks, and includes the discount department stores; and from the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission, which argues for the ‘reform’ on economic-rationalistl first principles.
Nearly everybody who understands the industry is alarmed that the unilateral surrendering of territorial copyright would severely weaken Australian publishers and independent booksellers, damage the welfare of authors and Australia’s literary culture, and devastate ancillary activities and industrie.
Unquote
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When I offer the little ones fourty cents, they don’t say anything, but I can see what they are thinking: who do you think we are…
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Mike Jones,
I’m surprised that you actually paid for a pdf!!
Only joking.
You sound umbraged. I’m umbraged, too. We’re all under the umbra, now!!
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Hi Big M.
Yes, paying surprised me too. But a PDF had the virtue of being immediate. Or so I thought.
The problem being that a web site that goes guts up and exposes server error messages has BIG problems with matters apart from not delivering the goods. It exposes itself to hackers who can figure out how it works – and exploit it – from the error messages. As a user of that site – how much confidence do I have that my purchasing details don’t also get exposed ?
Not a lot.
An otherwise good web site might still on rare occasions crash, but would not take its pants off for all the world to see.
The book that DID arrive is quite nice under the Adobe reader – it has good search and marking capabilities and is an excellent little research tool. It limits the reader to printing 10 pages per day – seems like sensible compromise so that one can have a hard copy but not go into black market competition with the real publisher.
Welcome to the umbra 🙂
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Let’s do what our comrade did to our “flag of shame”, Howard in UK and a brave journo to America’s “flag of shame”, Bush, in Iraq:
Throw the buggers a virtual shoe!
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I can empathise.
I quite confidently hand over credit card details to web sites that appear kosher, but, as you say, if their server is unstable then the likelihood of hacking increases.
It does seem like a good compromise to be able to print 10 pages/day, but, I’m sure a teenager could bypass that code for the princely sum of a bottle of vodka!
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