In November I hired Innerworkings, a large print broker, to print a book on New Zealand sports. I had done business with Innerworkings numerous times in the past 3 years and had only one previous problem. After a change in my Innerworkings account rep in from Jim Pouba to John Cunningham, following the first problem, I felt comfortable with Cunningham's efforts to get good pricing for my printing jobs. And for the next 3 years he delivered with good printing and good prices.
However in November Cunningham and Innerworkings were asked to get pricing for a New Zealand sports book that my company was publishing. After getting a quote for approximately $31,000 USD from an Illinois printer, Cunningham and Innerworkings decided to enlist a print broker from Seattle to get pricing for printing this book in New Zealand. The Seattle broker then hired a design and print broker firm in Auckland, New Zealand, to locate a possible New Zealand printer.
As it turns out, Cunningham and Innerworkings charged me approximately $57,500 USD for this printing. This price also included Innerworkings' 20 percent markup, plus the broker fees of the Seattle and Auckland firms. However, I was never told in advance by Innerworkings that there would be 2 sets of additional broker fees beyond Innerworkings' broker fees.
In early 2011 I went back to the same print broker in Auckland, New Zealand, that had been involved with the New Zealand sports book, to get the pricing for another New Zealand sports book, which had the same quantity and printing specifications as the book that was printed in November. The price from the New Zealand broker for the new book was approximately $40,000 USD — this amount was approximately $17,500 USD less than than the New Zealand sports book that had been printed through Innerworkings 3 months earlier.
The key difference in this pricing is the two sets of extra broker fees, which resulted in the additional $17,500 markup. When I tried to confront Innerworkings and my account rep, John Cunningham, with this problem, they denied this problem and turned down my request for a refund. When I traveled to Chicago to go to Innerworkings' office to try to get this problem resolved, Innerworkings refused to see me.
Now the Courts will have to force Innerworkings to do the right thing. I was ripped off by Innerworkings for approximately $17,500. If you are a future customer of Innerworkings, I would be very leery of doing business with them.
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