Borders Books and Music is horrible. I am beyond disgusted with them. On February 22, 2011 I shopped at Borders Express at Fair Oaks Mall, in Fairfax, Va. The elderly cashier asked if I would like to upgrade to the Borders Rewards Plus program. Since I have been buying more lately, I figured why not. I like books, my family reads alot, etc. Well, she pointed out that on my receipt it showed that my account had been upgraded and activated in the system. So exactly one month later, March 23, I go to the Borders on Rte. 29 in Fairfax, Va. I purchase $30 worth of merchandise, including an $8 book that I bought for "children's donations". The cashier behind the counter scans my card, and asks me if I would like to upgrade. Uh, no thanks I actually already upgraded. Well, nope not in the system he says. So he calls over a frazzled looking "Manager" who double checks my card, and asks if I still have the original receipt. Which I did, but not with me. Anyway, she proceeds to manually give me the "discount" and instructs me to call "customer service, because sometimes the system doesn't work". After speaking to someone and being put on hold, repeatedly, that afternoon, I am promised that in "7 days the system will re-activate you, and here is a confimation # to reference"..So I call the Fair Oaks Mall store to confirm that I am not mistaken, and yep they do have record of the upgrade. Well, it's been 8 days, I just spoke to yet another customer service person, who informs me that not only has my membership been CANCELLED, they have also reimbursed me!?? I have NOT received anything of the sort, which I told them, and told her to cancel the entire membership immediately. Yes, I realize that it's only $20, and no it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but this is complete bull!!

My 11 year old son received the first book in the new Rick Riordan series for his birthday at the end of June. His friend gave us a gift receipt in case we had already purchased it, but we hadn't so I threw it away knowing that we wouldn't be exchanging the book. We left a week later for a 3 week vacation. One week into the vacation, the binding of the book started coming loose. By the end of the second week, the book was in bits! This past week-end, we went to Borders to try to exchange the book. We just wanted a new copy of the same book because my children like to keep the books to re-read them (some of which we've had a number of years- still in new condition!). We were told that without a receipt they would not exchange the book. Even after explaining the situation in detail there was no customer service given. Over the past 15 years we have spent thousands of dollars on merchandise at Borders, loyal customers, and I was really offended that the loyalty wasn't returned. I can honestly say that I will absolutely not purchase anything else from Borders. I hope they have heard the saying about one unhappy customer being the worst advertising a store could get!!