Lulu.com, Shoddy and Shady

After six months and a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, Lulu.com has still not resolved numerous problems, even when they said they would. Since endless emails and the intervention of the Better Business Bureau has failed to remedy the situation, I must resort to the only option left: public humiliation of the guilty party.

If you are considering using Lulu.com: DONT. They are a scam. I deeply a bitterly rue being captured by them.

My complaints . . .

In September their software failed to propagate the spine ink color properly, resulting in some number of books being printed with black ink on the spine. They kept telling me it was my fault, 'user error.' I had sussed out the system thoroughly by that point, so I knew it wasn't me -- I had made errors in learning to use the system, and I have no trouble paying for books that I had to redo due to my own mistakes, so I had it scoped out the system pretty damn well by then. The spine ink wasn't my error. In November in one of their updates they announced that they had fixed a bug that caused spine ink color to fail to propagate correctly. I contacted them about getting my books replaced, since they had admitted the error was with their software. I kept getting Customer Support people who insisted there was nothing wrong with the system and that it was my error -- even when I pointed them to the article for them to read themselves. Upshot, they refused to replace the defective books.

I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I got email in which Lulu representatives asked me to send digital pictures of the defective books. They said that once they had received proof of how many books were affected, they would replace them. I explained to them that only one that I received was defective, but that I had reports from several customers of the same problem. I contacted some of the customers I knew personally and they sent me digital pictures and personal statements about the defective books they had received. I forwarded them to Lulu. It is now six months later and _no one_ has received a replacement of the defective books. I have sent them numerous emails, and am hammering on them yet again about this, but frankly, if Lulu intended to make good this error they would have done it long ago.

However, I do note that their system software has been amended to fix this bug. The user interface has also been improved to make it easy to monitor the spine color yourself -- previously it was a hidden feature, so you didn't know the spine color wasn't right until you received the proof. So, I'm pleased that they have fixed the bug, but not pleased that they haven't replaced the defective books, in spite of endless emails and the intervention of the Better Business Bureau. I'm appalled that they didn't even offer to replace the books until after the BBB contacted them. And appalled that even now, still no replacements.

At the same time, back in September and into October, I had problems with their ordering system. For example, I discovered that their system did not always update in real time. Again, this is their software bug. When you buy global distribution, you have to buy a proof. You can avoid buying a proof, but it's very tricky, and if you're new to the system, you don't realize that it is possible to opt out. It should not be a secret. The site even tells you that you are 'required' to buy the proof, whether you're ready to buy or not. Anyhow, what happened is, I uploaded a revised version, purchased the proof as required, and got the OLD version. The proper revision was listed on the website and when I clicked on the pdf to preview what would be printed, it was the correct revision, but what got sent to the printer was the OLD version. There is no way to know that the printer got an old version until you receive the proof and realize, "Hey! this is the wrong one!" This happened twice, out of eight books.

Lulu refunded me for the first erroneous proof and updated my account to state 'REFUNDED.' However, the second erroneous proof a couple weeks later was not so listed. I queried them and they insisted that they had refunded my money for the second erroneous proof, but MyAccount did not say so. When I got my credit card statement I checked it and saw that they had indeed refunded it -- but they STILL haven't updated MyAccount. I am happy to have the refund, but I labor under the perverse expectation that MyAccount information will be correct and up to date, but it isn't. I've complained about this many times, and this was also included in my complaint to the BBB, but they never addressed it.

They also do not necessarily ship the correct number of books. One time when I ordered a proof, I received two books: one with the erroneous black ink on the spine, and one with the correct gold ink on the spine. Please note, I ordered _one_ book. I got two. The two were _different_. They only charged me for one, which is good, but again, I labor under the unreasonable expectation that the customer will receive the correct number of books ordered.

At first I was pleased because I assumed that some alert person at Lulu had noticed an error on my order and fixed it, but it turned out this was not the case. Lulu staff denied all knowledge of this and told me that there were no notes or anything on my record to indicate that anything special had happened. They had no explanation for why I got two books, one with black ink, and one with gold ink, when in point of fact I had ordered only one book (with gold ink on the spine). They insist their records show only one book printed and shipped.

I happen to teach computer science, so I was able to figure out exactly what was going wrong and where and did my best to give them a detailed error report so that they could track down the bug and fix it, but all they ever did was deny that there was a bug and insist that it was impossible for what I said to have happened. By this point, three out of eight books were printed wrong, so it's my personal opinion that they have a significant quality control problem that they really need to know about and fix, but they don't agree. Therefore, as far as I can tell, they have never fixed the problem in which their system occasionally does not update fast enough to send the most recent revision to the printer.

Ergo, when the author is buying proofs, they have the risk that they won't get their most recent revision. This won't effect the mass market sales because enough time will have elapsed between the upload and the sale that Lulu will have updated (the delay is apparently no more than about ten minutes), so, consumers won't be effected, but authors and editors -- who may have a schedule to meet -- will. Since it takes about a week to get a proof, the publisher must build in plenty of extra time to get a replacement in case he discovers the proof is erroneous.

The average publisher at Lulu is an amateur who doesn't know much about publishing, layouts, or computer software, so they are likely to either not notice the error, or to think it is their own mistake. In other words, Lulu is taking shameless advantage of niave people.

If this was not enough, Lulu has published my private information. In account preferences, it says, "This information is used privately by Lulu for billing, support and informational purposes, and is not publicly available." It lies. I have my legal name listed for billing information, as is proper. I expect to pay my bills. I have 'firepearls' as the username. I have 'M. Kei' as the public name. I have 'M. Kei' as the author name. Yet, this morning, when I posted to a forum, it listed my billing name. The Customer Support person tells me that it is supposed to list the 'username,' which in this case would be 'firepearls.' I have checked my account very carefully; I have my information set the way I want it set and it has been set as such for many months. This is an internal Lulu error, not my error.

Months back I complained because they published my billing name as the author name on my storefront, even though they say, as you read above, that they will not make public 'for any reason' the private information. I pointed out that there is good reason for a person to use a pen name and a long history of authors using pen names; if they are going to service authors they MUST accommodate pen names. To fail to do so is to fail to adhere to even minimal standards for the publishing business.

They have apparently partially fixed this -- the space for 'author name' and 'public name' have been added since I made that other complaint, but they have not updated their internal system to propagate the correct name to the reviews on storefronts and into the forums. Currently, it is still grabbing the private billing name, not the username or public name. Back in October when this first happened and I complained about it and asked for them to remove my private information and change it to my public pen name, they did not do so. And still haven't. This is a gross violation of my privacy and their own stated policy.

This morning I also noticed that the forum I posted in (Haiku and Tanka) has not updated to daylight savings time. There's really no excuse for that. The change to daylight savings time is a well known public fact. They should and could have prepared for the change, verified that it happened correctly, and fixed it if it didn't. It's been eight days since the new Daylight Savings Time went into effect. There's no excuse for not complying with the law.

I also attempted to find out if the Haiku and Tanka Forum has an active moderator or not, since actions I have taken, like asking my books to be listed on the Haiku and Tanka Group Page, hve not been acted on. I was advised that the only way to know if the moderator was active was to read the forum. I pointed out that the Moderator has never posted to the forum, and that in the past four months, there were only two posts, one in December, and mine, made today. He suggested that I post a request to the forum, asking to be made a Moderator. I asked him how long my requests should go unanswered before Lulu considered it an abandoned forum and appointed someone else to run it. He had no idea. I asked him what Lulu does about abandoned forums. He had no idea. I asked him if he could add my books to the Group Storefront. He said only the Moderator could do that.

I also pointed out to him that the Haiku and Tanka Forum is not listed on the index of forums on the Lulu site and asked what needed to be done to get it listed there. He said that only members of the group could see the forum. I pointed out that the only way to know the forum existed, was to know that the forum existed and use the search box to find it. It doesn't seem very useful to have a Group Storefront and forum that only members of the Group can view and use. I am trying to understand why some groups are indexed and some are not, but I have not yet figured out the forums at Lulu.

Their Customer Service is abysmal. Either they are nice people who know nothing and can't help, or they are irritating people with attitude. Or they recite the party line and deny that Lulu has any responsibility.

I realize that many people don't care about these things, but I and my colleagues are professionals. We care about making our books right. We want a printer that delivers the books exactly as we ordered them, keeps our accounts correct and up to date, and cheerfully and promptly fixes problems. Lulu isn't it.

I also know that I am not the only one who has had problems with them because some customers and poets have mentioned their own experiences to me. I have advised them to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau. If you received a defective copy of Fire Pearls with black ink on the spine, please let me know. If you have contacted Lulu about it, please let me know the response. If they have failed to deliver replacements for the defective books after you have notified them of the problem, please file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx

~K~