Barnes and Noble has sent out a copious number of emails in the past few days to customers in the United States. Most of the emails were sent to people that stated ‘Congratulations. Your New NOOK is registered.’ Good e-Reader has learned that the vast majority of customers have never had a NOOK e-reader or used the NOOK reading app for Android or iOS. This email can be disregarded and was sent in error, by Barnes and Noble. It was not a phishing attack and nobody got a hold of your credit card details and purchased something on the booksellers website.
There is no point in initiating a live chat with a B&N customer service rep, because of these errant emails, there is normally a 60 minute wait to speak to someone. The bookseller has not disclosed why these were sent out, the worst thing is, most people who got the emails had never heard of the NOOK, and have never used one. This same email debacle happened six years ago.
I think this issue could have arose for a couple of reasons. There was likely an influx of new accounts created by people who received a NOOK e-reader for Christmas. People could have also received gift cards, which have to be redeemed by creating an account on the B&N website. I have a feeling that this was an errant database issue, with sending emails to non-Nook users by mistake, instead of true NOOK users.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.