Joys Of Internet Shopping

Saturday night, I placed an order through Barnes & Noble's web site. I had a couple of $5 gift cards, so I decided I would use them. I found a few books I wanted (mostly clearance) and placed the order. When checking my e-mail on Sunday, I first received e-mails stating that there would be a delay, then got an e-mail stating that the order was ready to ship. Today I got e-mails stating that there had been a delay and I had to go on their web site to say I still wanted the books or the order would be canceled. I received a copy of the e-mail for each of the five items I ordered. I decided at that point that I would just cancel everything (the other option I had along with saying I still wanted everything). I hit the cancel buttons for all five items and then, later in the day, I receive e-mails stating that I cannot cancel because the items are being prepared for shipping. What???!!! OK, so I go onto the web site and look at my order again and it still shows the options to say yes, I still want the item or cancel the item FOR ALL FIVE ITEMS. At the top of the order it states that if I do not select the 'still want' option, it will be canceled in 24 hours. I'll check tomorrow to see if anything has changed, but I am so confused right now that I may never order from them again. With the demise of Borders, this is not the time for Barnes & Noble to go all squirrelly on us. And this is not the first time that has happened to me. I had ordered The Complete Avengers on DVD-rom (that's the comic book, it anyone is wondering), and it was not until I got through checkout and waited for it to ship that they said it was out of stock. What a lousy way to run a web site. No wonder everyone orders from Amazon.

THIS JUST IN!
After initially publishing this post, I was doing a quick e-mail check before heading off to spend some quality time with Tolstoy and guess what I found? An e-mail from Barnes & Noble saying that my order had shipped; ALL FIVE ITEMS. I don't know who let their pet monkey play with the e-mail portion of their web site, but they need to put him back in his cage before he brings down any more confusion on unsuspecting customers. What a weird trip this has been.