The Consumerist, as always, is right on top of Barnes & Noble's recent Nook-related failings. Yes, people are still without their Nook, and yes, customer service woes are still running rampant at the fledgling book retailer.

You see, the $100 gift cards promised to customers if their Nook did not arrive by Christmas? That's good customer service. However, those $100 cards have yet to arrive in many cases. That's bad customer service.

Worse still, blogger Jesse Vincent has been writing dutifully about the cards and more since the holidays, and things haven't gotten any better. Broken promises, vanishing orders—all there, and all indicative of a retailer that grossly underestimated demand for its savvy e-reader and overestimated its ability to sell them.

The silver lining? B&N customer service is super polite when they tell you your order has been canceled or disappeared or whatever. So there's that, although I'm pretty much with Kat when she says these thing will never truly hit the mainstream. [Consumerist]