I ordered hundreds of books from Culture Plus Book Distributors of Brooklyn, New York, in conjunction with a multi-author book signing event I was holding during a writers conference.
Several bookstore owners suggested we use them because of their return policy, which states buyers can return unsold books for full refund. Culture Plus' staff was so confused from the beginning that I should have suspected how badly this would turn out, but because they were so established in the writing community I decided to be optimistic that they would get it together. VERY BAD DECISION.
In May I faxed to Culture Plus a spreadsheet with a list of books so that they could give me a quote. Between the time I faxed the quote request and the time they responded, several authors cancelled and others signed on, so when I received the total I informed them that I would rework it and send a final order. I sent an updated spreadsheet with my order within one week.
In mid-July I received a shipment of books with payment of $3,597.04 due C.O.D. I immediately forwarded a cashier's check in the amount of $3,597.04 via UPS and then began going through the boxes to confirm that I had, in fact, received what I ordered. I had not. They had sent a substantial number of books from the first list and only a few of the books that I actually wanted.
My associate and I contacted the owner, Larry Cunningham, immediately via conference call and we discussed our options which were (a) ship the unwanted books back at Culture Plus' expense, or (b) try to sell the books along with those we had ordered and then return any unsold books along with those we were unable to sell. Rather than ship them all back, we offered to help Culture Plus out by trying to sell the books, thus saving them money on shipping. Larry Cunningham then agreed to send the remaining books we had ordered but not received with priority delivery to ensure we received them before the conference was to start on August 4.
When the conference ended, we shipped all unsold books back to Culture Plus as previously agreed, shipping separately the books that we received but had not ordered or sold. We shipped those back at their expense with the UPS account number Larry provided for this purpose. The books that we did order but were unable to sell were shipped back at our expense pursuant to our agreement. All books that we returned to them were new books in perfect condition and were returned within one month of our event.
After Culture Plus had received all of the books back that we shipped, my associate and I telephoned Larry and he refused to receive our calls. We telephoned him four times over a period of two weeks, and he continued to refuse to speak with either of us.
We were instead forced to either speak with his "representative" who answered the phone every time we called and, of course, knew nothing whatsoever about the account or we might as well stop calling because we weren't going to talk to anyone else. We had prepared and faxed over a statement of our account and requested the refund owed as shown below:
Total cost of all books received: $4,769.32
(books NOT ordered but received= $952.74 PLUS books ordered and received=$3,816.58)
Total of all books returned: $3,146.91
(books NOT ordered=$802.27 PLUS books ordered and returned=$2,344.64)
Total Due = $1,622.41
Total Paid = $3,597.04
Difference / amount to be refunded by Culture Plus = $1,974.63
Culture Plus' representative informed us that the credit will be issued to our account. Because we do not have a standing account with them since that was a one-time effort and we have no intention of doing business with them ever again and we no longer sell books in conjunction with our conference, we insisted that the balance be refunded. We were then told that they only owed us approximately $200—which I also have not received. Since then my demands for the refund I am owed has been outright refused with no explanations or responses whatsoever.
Culture Plus' refusal to refund my money is fraud and theft. I want EVERYONE who writes or sells books to know about Culture Plus' terrible business practices so that you don't also get ripped off. They continue to (1) misrepresent their company as a reputable business by failing to honor their return policy guarantee; (2) blatantly dismiss and refuse to acknowledge my repeated demands for payment; and (3) steadfastly refuse to refund the amount I am owed.
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