Has anyone ever tried to get their money back from createspace

[C.L.]

I placed an order for some books on Dec 3rd. The promised delivery date was Dec 21, and since they usually deliver ahead of schedule I was okay with this, since I still had a few leftover from my last order.

By Dec 20th it still hadn't shipped. I complained to createspace. Apparently my books were being produced by an overflow facility (I guess because of Christmas rush). They sent an email to the facility and suddenly my books were produced and shipped, and they arrived on Dec 23rd. All of this was too late for Christmas, so my friends who still wanted copies to give as gifts ended up having to drive to the bookstore where I left copies to see if there were any left (there were, thankfully).

I went down to the US to pick up the books yesterday, and the colour on the covers is off. The heart, which should be RED, is a browny-orange and frankly it looks like overdone steak. You can place it next to the previous printing and my proof copies that I got before that and see the difference right away. I am so displeased right now.

Has anyone ever had something like this happen? Is there a chance I could get my money back or something?

[P.D.]

Yes, my first printing of my first book there were some issues with the light background image not showing up. They needed to be about 15% less transparent for the printing to show up properly like the electronic proof showed. Of course, I should have picked it up on the physical proof, but I didn't. So I ended up with a box of books, 24 I think, that had covers that weren't up to snuff. I contacted support, and after sorting out the printing problem, they sent me a new order without charge.

[C.L.]

P.D. Workman (Pamela) wrote: "Yes, my first printing of my first book there were some issues with the light background image not showing up. They needed to be about 15% less transparent for the printing to show up properly like..."

That's good to hear. I got several paper proofs plus my first shipment of books and none of them looked like this.

[Amanda]

I had an issue one time with how it looked inside, printed crooked and they sent me another copy free of charge. So yeah, definitely say something to them and they should be decent about it:)

[Carole]

They will refund on their mistakes. They once made a free promotional video on my first book because of an editing error that was their fault.

[C.L.]

Carole wrote: "They will refund on their mistakes. They once made a free promotional video on my first book because of an editing error that was their fault."
Wouldn't that be nice!

[Ben]

I've sent back books plenty of times and had them reprint them. I'm not sure who does their printing, but at times it's pretty average.

[C.L.]

Ben wrote: "I've sent back books plenty of times and had them reprint them. I'm not sure who does their printing, but at times it's pretty average."
Ugh, sending them back. What a PITA that would be.

[R.L.]

Seriously. I hope they'd let you just keep them for the inconvenience. Have you reached out to them yet? I wouldn't even mention returning the bad ones unless they say ask for them.

[P.D.]

I never returned the misprints. That would have been prohibitive.

[C.L.]

They sent an email saying, basically "you've got your books, are you happy now?" and I clicked the "no" option and filled out why

[Ben]

I just had to print out a label and drop the box back off at courier. That was for orders of 10 & 20, but for one or two books I told them I wasn't sending them back and they could just deal with it lol.

[Carole]

I forgot about that. Once they mail them- they don't want them back. I had ones with an error and they told me to keep them. Also, they mailed me the wrong books and told me to keep them or throw them away.

[Erica]

That is the one issue I have had with them. Their printing quality isn't always consistent. I can't complain too much though. I have had good experiences with createspace. They typically want a picture of the misprinted books. They then determine if it was on their side or mine. Each time, they have sent me new copies and didn't require me to send in the old ones.

[Denae]

I did have physical proof copies that looked different than the final copies (lighter cover), but my friends disagreed on which cover was better. So, I didn't bother about asking for a refund/reprint.

It is good to hear that they are accommodating enough to fix their errors, though!

[Alexis]

Hmm. I hope none of our reader end up with crappy print work from CreateSpace/Amazon!

[Carole]

I've had a reader complain that a book fell apart. I sent them a new one.

[Bruce]

Best to call their toll free number and tell them what happened. They have always done right by me when there was a problem.