I Just Wanted To Buy Canadian: The Indigo Kiada

 

I have experienced a lot of Sisyphean moments with new digital media in my life but nothing as Sisyphean as happened to me with the Canadian bookseller Indigo. I created an account at Indigo’s website. A verification was sent to my email. I put the verification number in and presto I had an account. I put five books in my shopping queue. Then I attempted to check out these five items that I had in my queue. It asked me to sign in. I signed in with the user id and password I had saved in my browser (you know the user id and password key) when I created the account. I, however, could not sign in and instead got the mantra of the digital age, namely, there is a problem with your user id and your password memo.

Annoyed I contacted Indigo chat and eventually had them cancel the account. I then started anew rinsing and repeating what happened earlier including placing five books in my queue. And when I went to check out guess what happened? Yup, I could not sign in in order to order the five books and have them forwarded to my address.

I contacted Indigo AGAIN. They said no such email existed though I had once again received a verification from Indigo via that email (digital cleansing?). They said they could fix this but I gave up not trusting that what could not be accomplished twice could be accomplished on the third try. I don’t like spending forty-five minutes doing Sisypheanish nothings again and again. Paradoxically and perhaps even ironically I continue to receive promotional emails on the email Indigo says does not exist.

The moral? Well there are several. Indigo lost a potential customer one who wished to avoid American owned skanks like Amazon. And I learned, once again, that the brave new digital world is a pain in the arse over and over again. Bah humbug.