Complaining about Barnes and Noble

Dear To Whom It May Concern 12/16/09

I am writing to inform you, that I had a very disappointing experience at your 3rd St. Promenade store in Santa Monica CA. Due to your confusing discount policies, I may not be returning as a customer to your stores or online services. I was told when I was at the register, that you no longer used the teacher discount card that I had,That you now have a plastic card. If I had an I.D. from my school however, I could receive the 10% discount. I only had my teacher's union card, but was told this was not acceptable. Even though it has been acceptable in the past. I had my discount card with my school written on it by your employee, when it was issued to me. The employee who issued the card verified my I.D. at the time of issue, and this should be reasonable enough verification. I also had plenty of photo I.D's that verified who I was. I was told, that if I could bring in my school I.D. in the next 90 days then, he (the cashier) would be willing to give me the discount. This is not a reasonable solution to the problem. The burden of proof should not fall on the customer as if I am some sort of scammer trying to get a $4.00 dollar discount. You need to improve this system or eliminate the discount. I would spend more then $4.00 dollars on parking and gas, when I returned to receive the discount. So it would not be something I would be willing to do. This is a confusing policy and has only made me upset, and I would expect it has made others upset as well. There are too many choices for books from other venues, for me to waste anymore time with a place that doesn't make me feel good about my purchases. A place that has a policy that creates an expectation of a discount and then denies it when I get to the register. A place that puts the burden of creating happy customers on the customers themselves, by asking them to assume the burden of proof, for a policy that the company created. Why would any customer waste time doing a job, that should be done by the people who are paid to work there?