"Shiquita" came to our house on June 25 and sold my wife 2 subscriptions - one to Catholic Digest and one to Baseball Digest - collecting a total of $60 cash. The order numbers were P198505 and P198497 respectively.
When my wife told me about this, I decided to look up the actual subscription prices of these magazines. While the Catholic Digest price for 24 issues was not that much below what Chapel has sold it to me for, the Baseball Digest price for 16 issues (2 years) was $19.95/year through the company and $36/year through Chapel. I would have to pay $72 (plus that $7 process and handling fee) for a 2-year subscription that would have cost me less than $40 if I had subscribed directly.
I sent in the cancellation for the Baseball Digest within the 3 day cooling off period - it remains to be seen if the money my wife had given as a deposit will ever be refunded. At the time, I was willing to continue with the Catholic Digest order, but my wife decided that she wanted that order cancelled too. I just mailed that today, even though we are past the 3-day cooling off period.
I am unable to contact them by phone during their normal business hours. I either get the answering machine or the phone seems to pick up on the other end (without any ringing) but no one is on the other end. On the last call, despite their warning not to leave a message, I did. I gave them the order numbers and told them that I had sent in cancellation notices for both and if I had not received anything within 30 days, I would report them to both the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.
I did an Internet Search and came upon this web site and decided to look up Chapel Sales. I only wish my wife had called me before paying the $ for the subscriptions. I would have told her to firmly, yet kindly, shoo the sales person away.
I don't expect to see my money again, but I am going to pursue every avenue that I can to get it back. I certainly wish that some lawyer would start a class-action suit against Chapel Sales - they seem to have been doing this for several years and in several locations in NJ. Their use of young African-American females to sell the books is an obvious ploy to prey upon the sympathies of prospective customers.
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