Where the Books Are, Seriously Where Are They

Last week, we received a very large special order.  The books weren't available from our primary distributor, so we had to go through our secondary one instead.  We have been using then since we opened, so we thought that there wouldn't be any problems with ordering through them.  The books were due this past Wednesday, but they never arrived.  We called the distributor to find to what the problem was.  It turned out there were quite a few.  Since it had been almost a year since our last order, they were slightly suspicious with our new order.  Admittedly, this had happened once before, but the problem was easily taken care of.  However, we had the further problem of going over our maximum order size.  Somewhere along the line, we were given a maximum daily order of about two hundred dollars.  This current order exceeded that, but a bit.  We had place an order that was above the limit before, but that may have been before the changeover.  Anyway, we didn't have that information in our records and the sales representative that took our order over the phone either didn't mention it or didn't know we had the limit.  The distributor had tried to call us.  Unfortunately, they were using the contact number we had set up before we had an actual storefront.  For some reason, they hadn't updated to the number we have been using for the last eighteen years.  This is the  number we used not only to call them for information, but the one we used to confirm our identity when using their recently discontinued  phone ordering system.  Why they weren't able to use this number is beyond us.  They finally emailed us, just before closing time the day before the books were scheduled to arrive.  The person in charge of our business email didn't get to read it until after we called to see what the problem was. (She had overlooked it because she didn't closely read the message header). They originally were going to have to look over our financial records, before they were going to release the shipment.  We didn't want that.  We also were unable to use a business credit/debit card to pay for the books upfront.  Finally, they released the books on our own account, but with the thinly veiled warning that a third party collection agency might have to be called in if we weren't able to pay. The customer had already paid us in full, so the money was available.  As of this writing, the books are in shipment and should be were soon.  We still use many services from this distributor, even though we may have problems in placing another order form them.  We will still use them for as long as we are in business.