A Create Space nightmare

In the past, I've had very good service from Create SPace and been very pleased wtih them. This last order has pushed me over the edge.

I have a customer that bought 500 books and paid more than double in shipping to get his order today, Monday, March 12 instead of Wednesday. $409.99 as opposed to $203.

I followed up today to make sure the order arrived. UPS did not receive it until 6:34 pm today in NEW YORK. The customer is in California. Create Space farmed out the order to an associate facility.

It gets worse.

Despite being very careful in entering the shipping information for my customer, and double checking the numbers and spelling to prevent problems, somehow, their system kicked over to the default setting, which is my address in Florida.

I had Create Space call UPS to try to intercept the shipment. But since they are not the sender, UPS can't take changes from them. I tried hoping that as the receiver maybe I could at least refuse the shipment. Nope. They have to make at least one delivery attempt.

I have to refuse it tomorrow and they will return it to the sender who can then resend it to California. I'm fairly certain that it will not be returned by overnight air like they are sending it to me. I have emailed my customer and promised to refund his shipping cost in full. But I'm waiting to hear back to see if he wants to cancel the order. I'm physically sick over this.

This customer goes to 21 trade shows a year. He wanted a price on 2-4,000 books. He also wanted stickers placed on this book order so his customers knew they were a gift from him. Of course Create Space doesn't do this. I asked if I could come to Charleston, SC where they are located and apply them myself to the order of 500. Nope Can't let me in  the building.

Could they put the books on the loading dock and let me apply the stickers there? Noooo, can't do that either. No reason. Just "No."

They could not have been more indifferent as to how they could help me help my customer. I had always found them very helpful ... until now.

Doesn't it seem like employees of a company should be empowered to do what it takes (within reason) to help a customer? So you've never had anyone apply stickers to a book on the loading dock. Why not? Why can't it be done? How many requests do they get for this?

Thank you for letting me vent.