I'm getting rather frustrated by Bookeen support.

[delphidb96]

It's now entering the second week since I've requested an RMA for a crashed512MB Cybook. This is the one which utterly crashed while attempting to update to Build 708.

Yes, I've sent several emails to Bookeens' support. Yes, I've also sent emails to Laurent Pickard, one of the owners. Yes, I've been roundly ignored.

I'm beginning to believe that I only got decent service because I was a member of an organization that actually *sold* Cybooks - and that now that NAEB is out of business, I can be "safely" ignored. I doubt that Bookeen will allow the comment to remain, but I've posted a comment to their blog to the point it would be wiser for Bookeen to deal with customer problems *BEFORE* they come up with a fancy-schmancy new webpage.

But maybe Bookeen does not care whether their reputation gets trashed.

In the meantime, I'm shipping my *personal* 512MB Cybook up to the customer who's had this problem and I'll be sans new-model Cybook until such time as Bookeen deigns to acknowledge my *RIGHT* to have the broken Cybook fixed or replaced! Note that I did not claim a right to have it fixed or replaced at no cost, just that I have a *RIGHT* to expect service.

I'll keep everyone posted as to how things proceed.

Derek

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

I doubt that Bookeen will allow the comment to remain, but I've posted a comment to their blog to the point it would be wiser for Bookeen to deal with customer problems *BEFORE* they come up with a fancy-schmancy new webpage.

Well, as a developer I can tell you we hear stuff like that from our customers every now and then. The bottom line (for us) is that different resources are in charge of the web site and marketing, not the developers. So, one thing in no way affects the scheduling of the other.

BOb

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

In the meantime, I'm shipping my *personal* 512MB Cybook up to the customer who's had this problem and I'll be sans new-model Cybook until such time as Bookeen deigns to acknowledge my *RIGHT* to have the broken Cybook fixed or replaced!

Kudos for you for looking after your customer - if only you could get the same level of service that you provide.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i'm very sorry you've not yet gotten a reply. i don't have any information specifically about bookeen so i'm not sure whether this applies, however your problem might be due to the fact that in august in france and more particularly in paris, a lot of people are gone (some businesses even close completely for 2-4 weeks). so it's quite possible that the specific people you've tried to contact (including Laurent Pickard) are not there.

if bookeen is running with a reduced staff as is more than likely they might be taking longer than usual to reply to all queries. i recommend that if you haven't heard back by then you try to recontact them at the beginning of september, when things should be getting back to normal operations.

good luck !

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i'm very sorry you've not yet gotten a reply. i don't have any information specifically about bookeen so i'm not sure whether this applies, however your problem might be due to the fact that in august in france and more particularly in paris, a lot of people are gone (some businesses even close completely for 2-4 weeks). so it's quite possible that the specific people you've tried to contact (including Laurent Pickard) are not there.

if bookeen is running with a reduced staff as is more than likely they might be taking longer than usual to reply to all queries. i recommend that if you haven't heard back by then you try to recontact them at the beginning of september, when things should be getting back to normal operations.

good luck !

Excuse me!?! Companies even *close* for half or more of a month?!?

Any company with international sales - and a clear history of problem/*LEMON* devices - had better *NOT* reduce staff or close for even one *week*!!! And if they do, they deserve, completely any and all trashing of their reputation that occurs therefrom. The very concept a company could do this when there is clear evidence that problems exist in their sole product simply amazes me - now I'm mad!

I may well have been part of NAEB, but I'm *also* a customer! Further, the problems started in JULY! I am *not* happy!

Derek

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Excuse me!?! Companies even *close* for half or more of a month?!?

Any company with international sales - and a clear history of problem/*LEMON* devices - had better *NOT* reduce staff or close for even one *week*!!! And if they do, they deserve, completely any and all trashing of their reputation that occurs therefrom. The very concept a company could do this when there is clear evidence that problems exist in their sole product simply amazes me - now I'm mad!

I may well have been part of NAEB, but I'm *also* a customer! Further, the problems started in JULY! I am *not* happy!

Derek

okaaaay !! calm down ! my intent was not to make you angry. yes, a lot of companies close for part of the month of august. bookeen probably is not one of them but they probably are operating with a reduced staff. i can see that you have a hard time understanding this but culturally it's very important, and in fact legally you are not allowed to work all year long (we have legislation about working conditions which is very strict, and it includes things like "you can't work 7 days a week" and "you can't work 52 weeks a year". personally i feel that's a good thing.). so if you are a small business, yes, you might close the whole shop for a two weeks or a month. it's a quality of life / health thing, you know ? it's important to take a break from time to time.

bookeen as i said is therefore probably running on a reduced staff (and, again, this is completely normal and in fact legally inevitable). they are a small operation. you know this. i am sure that they are doing their best, and we have seen that they are making efforts to improve response time. i think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

as for their product, i'm very sorry that you have some problems with it, but perhaps you're being too harsh when you say it's a lemon. i know a lot of people who have no problems with they cybook whatsoever. it's a fragile piece of relatively new tech, so some problems are bound to come up, but overall i think it's really a nice device.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

okaaaay !! calm down ! my intent was not to make you angry. yes, a lot of companies close for part of the month of august. bookeen probably is not one of them but they probably are operating with a reduced staff. i can see that you have a hard time understanding this but culturally it's very important, and in fact legally you are not allowed to work all year long (we have legislation about working conditions which is very strict, and it includes things like "you can't work 7 days a week" and "you can't work 52 weeks a year". personally i feel that's a good thing.). so if you are a small business, yes, you might close the whole shop for a two weeks or a month. it's a quality of life / health thing, you know ? it's important to take a break from time to time.

bookeen as i said is therefore probably running on a reduced staff (and, again, this is completely normal and in fact legally inevitable). they are a small operation. you know this. i am sure that they are doing their best, and we have seen that they are making efforts to improve response time. i think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

as for their product, i'm very sorry that you have some problems with it, but perhaps you're being too harsh when you say it's a lemon. i know a lot of people who have no problems with they cybook whatsoever. it's a fragile piece of relatively new tech, so some problems are bound to come up, but overall i think it's really a nice device.

ZP,

I *get* vacation time. We have Vacation Time over here in the US. But we're smart enough to know that one schedules those vacations over the course of several months so that the "reduced staffing" is like 10%-15% of total staff. It's one of those "cultural things" where the customer is considered important enough that a company ensures sufficient staffing to meet crises, problems and general business. It's called "being a successful company". The French *may* have heard of the concept - clearly it never took.

As for "lemons"... Let's see. My *first* Cybook broke - screen. My first 512MB Cybook broke - broken screen. This Cybook I've "inherited" broke - bad update, *AND* was a replacement for an older 64MB "broken" Cybook - bad update. I now have two Cybooks-one shipping out today-both of which are less than 6 months old and a history of several broken Cybooks - from two customers.

Can you say "lemon"? I knew you could!

Derek

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

ZP,

I *get* vacation time. We have Vacation Time over here in the US. But we're smart enough to know that one schedules those vacations over the course of several months so that the "reduced staffing" is like 10%-15% of total staff. It's one of those "cultural things" where the customer is considered important enough that a company ensures sufficient staffing to meet crises, problems and general business. It's called "being a successful company". The French *may* have heard of the concept - clearly it never took.

different cultures have different ways of doing things. i think you're being a bit judgemental and shortsighted here but i understand you're annoyed. it's harder to schedule vacation time during the year when you have school-age children, of course, which may not be your case, and might be the case of many bookeen employees (i don't know), which is a major reason for many people taking their vacations in july and august. and it's also harder to keep 90% staff presence at all times when your company only has 10 people working for it. this is why the shop down the street from me closes completely for a month ; there are only two employees and i'm pretty sure they're married. bookeen doesn't close but they can't avoid letting their employees take vacation.

As for "lemons"... Let's see. My *first* Cybook broke - screen. My first 512MB Cybook broke - broken screen. This Cybook I've "inherited" broke - bad update, *AND* was a replacement for an older 64MB "broken" Cybook - bad update. I now have two Cybooks-one shipping out today-both of which are less than 6 months old and a history of several broken Cybooks - from two customers.

Can you say "lemon"? I knew you could!

Derek

well, again, i'm sorry you've had this bad experience, but there are still quite a lot of unbroken cybooks out there as well. and as i said, since the technology is still relatively new, i suppose sadly it's not that unsurprising that it may still have some bugs to work out. i do hope that you have a better experience in the future, and i'm very sorry you've had this problem, it must be frustrating.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

s a year". personally i feel that's a good thing.). so if you are a small business, yes, you might close the whole shop for a two weeks or a month. it's a quality of life / health thing, you know ? it's important to take a break from time to time.

But legally you have to respond to consumer issues (according to EU rules) before a certain number of days and I am pretty sure that one month is not acceptable. So if you sell a product to consumers you cannot close shop.

We have/had a similar phenomena in Sweden were nearly everything was closed the whole of July but shops did not close and shops handle warranty issues.

[zelda_pinwheel]

well, i repeat, i am 90% certain that BOOKEEN IS NOT ACTUALLY CLOSED, however they are almost certainly operating with a reduced staff, as is most of the country, and apparently much of Sweden.

i would have said "i'm sure" however i am not actually affiliated with Bookeen, so i really can't give you any kind of concrete information or reply in their place ; however it seemed like an obvious factor here, especially given the small size of Bookeen so i thought i would mention it as a possible explanation. that's all.

[tompe]

Of course it is a reasonable explanation. I just do not think it is a reasonable excuse.

[alia]

That is too bad. I've actually had quite pleasant interactions with Bookeen (although I usually just go through BooksOnBoard support since that is generally faster, and I like them). Also, Derek, I am curious (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I genuinely am curious) - if you thought the Cybook was a lemon, why did you sell it to people through NAEB?

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by alia

That is too bad. I've actually had quite pleasant interactions with Bookeen (although I usually just go through BooksOnBoard support since that is generally faster, and I like them). Also, Derek, I am curious (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I genuinely am curious) - if you thought the Cybook was a lemon, why did you sell it to people through NAEB?

Well, *I'd* certainly go through BoB support if it weren't for the *fact* that the particular Cybook in question was purchased by this customer through NAEB. BoB ain't gonna lift a finger for her or me.

As for why I consider this particular unit a "lemon"? Or why I think I've managed to get my hands upon a *lot* of "lemons"?

Well, this particular unit is a "lemon" because it arrived EOM-July and the Build 708 update was run - and promptly died - on a *new* device. No attempt by the customer, or myself, has managed to revive it. That pretty much marks *this* unit as a "lemon".

As for Cybooks in general... I don't believe they're "lemons". I *do* believe that most users are not putting the level of use to them that I am. I *use* my Cybooks/EB-100s (one of them at any time) every single day. For 8-10 hours per day, up to 18 hours on weekends. In that time, I've had several failures. I think the level of use I put on an ebook reader is such that I get a year's worth of use from a Cybook every couple of months. And that appears to be the rate of failure. 2-3 months at my rate of use/reading pretty much starts to wear a reader down. (Yes, at typical reading rate, I can go through an average-length novel in one day.)

Do I believe this makes each 'worn-out' reader a "lemon"? No. But it does appear to show that many current models may well be worn out by this time next year. Something I hadn't considered when we started selling Cybooks and something that, as a user who's bought three Netronix-based devices (Cybook Gen3 (2) and EB-100 (1)), spending nearly $1,200 for them, has me concerned. I had been planning on amortizing the devices over several *years* of use. Now I may well have to accept the need to spend another thousand befor the year is out.

For people who read 1-3 hours per day, this 'wearing out' time will probably extend to a couple of year. And at that rate, who's to say the models available won't be fully supportive of 64-level color, 1/10-1/30 of a second screen refresh rate, touchscreen, and epub/mobi/ereader/lit/html/pdf ebook formats, yes? So I can't really say that Cybooks in general are "lemons". That would be grossly unfair and inaccurate.

Derek

[bbusybookworm]

Derek, Can I ask what do you read all day?

Because I'me really interested in How you manage to get 8 to 10 hours of reading time each day :-).

I'm luck if I get a couple of hours spread out over the course of the day, and a couple more on weekends etc. The most I've managed is when I was travelling, putting in about 8 or 9 hours of reading on the flight and at the airport.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by bbusybookworm

Derek, Can I ask what do you read all day?

Because I'me really interested in How you manage to get 8 to 10 hours of reading time each day :-).

I'm luck if I get a couple of hours spread out over the course of the day, and a couple more on weekends etc. The most I've managed is when I was travelling, putting in about 8 or 9 hours of reading on the flight and at the airport.

Simple. Take one person who's not leaving the house that much. (Disabled.) Add in a tad of frustration over lack of quality TV. Blend in a strong predilection towards reading and you've got the mix.

Derek