I never had a bad experience at this bookstore... until now. Yesterday I bought a book from their clearance shelf, and the book contained a compact disc. When I wanted to listen to the CD, I discovered it was cracked and completely unreadable. No problem, I thought, as there were at least four other copies of that book on the shelf. The first time I called to ask about an exchange, the sales clerk was rude and rushed me off the phone and told me to come in to the store. That was the evening of 12/28/10. I am glad I didn't waste $7 taking the bus from Longmont to Boulder, because on 12/29/10, I called and the clerk ""Hazel"" told me I could not get an exchange, that only the owner could authorize that and he was out of town. I tried to explain that I am moving to Fort Collins in several days, and I asked if she could please get authorization because I would not be back in Boulder for some time. She refused, and kept parroting the ""I have no authority"" line. I have a question: Lighthouse Books, what kind of business would trust their physical store with probably 100K+ worth or merchandise to someone while they're out of town for an extended period and NOT trust them to make a simple decision to give a well-warranted refund/exchange for less than ten bucks? A flaky and completely out of touch one, and one I suspect will be going out of business in the coming years, and rightfully so. But hopefully they will change their ways. I'll head over to the Boulder Bookstore next time I'm in town.
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