WARNING RANT AHEAD. Turn away now if you don’t want to read it.
Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes & More. A catalog company based out of Owings Mill, Maryland. Part of the Chesapeake Fine Food Group. They describe themselves on LinkedIn as:
Based out of Baltimore, MD, Chesapeake Fine Food Group is the proud parent company of Mackenzie Limited, Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes & More, and Impromptu Gourmet.
Whether you’re a seafood connoisseur or a chocoholic, our catalogs have something for the gourmet in everyone. We have a simple rule of thumb: find the best of the best, and never compromise on quality.
Our three catalogs circulate on a monthly basis, and we can also be found online at http://www.mackenzieltd.com, http://www.cbcrabcakes.com, and http://www.impromptugourmet.com
One tiny detail? I get catalogs from Chesapeake Bay and Mackenzie Limited. Only I have never ordered from them nor received a gift from them. When TWO of the same catalog came in for Chesapeake Bay today I called “customer service”. Can you say Ms. Snotty Pants at your service?
Indeed. Snotful doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Ms. Snotty Pants was all professionally perky when she answered my customer service call. She was saccharine sweet until….OH MY GOD the nerve! I had the temerity to request NO CATALOGS.
“You aren’t calling to place an order?” Ms. Snotty Pants asked.
“No, sadly I just want to kill fewer trees. I have never received a gift from your company nor ordered from your company and also never requested a catalog, so I just want to be removed from the mailing list.”
“I can’t help you.” replied the suddenly icy Ms. Snotty Pants.
This is when she got truly snotty. Spoke to me like I was a toddler. She couldn’t possibly help me because (wait for it) my name was on a mailing list they paid for. Someplace called the Direct Marketing Association.
I was dumbfounded. I asked her to repeat herself. So she did. Irritated Mommy to bad toddler style. Did she offer me contact information for Direct Marketing Association? NOPE.
And apparently although they can solicit me for business in an unsolicited manner and clog up my mailbox, they are not required to maintain an opt out of catalogs list that so many other businesses keep. Basically this woman didn’t give a crap when she realized no credit card and order from me.
Forget about the fact that I think these lists should be like do not call lists (which aren’t paid attention to much anymore, sadly), I think this phone call speaks VOLUMES about the LACK of actual customer service because every other catalog company I have phoned to say “Hey no more catalogs please” could NOT have been nicer. They were all lovely. Except for Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes & More.
So maybe they have wonderful products and maybe their other brands MacKenzie Limited and Impromptu Gourmet also have wonderful products. But I will never, ever order from them and will encourage anyone who wants to read this post this far to also never, ever order from them. Customer service should be pretty damn basic for a company like this. And they are lacking.
Oh and about the Direct Marketing Association? If you call them, they have absurdly short customer service hours daily, and oh yeah, you have to PAY THEM to submit an application to remove your name from their solicitation lists when you didn’t give them permission in the first place.
So I signed up at CatalogChoice.org, a non-profit who will try to help you get off the catalog lists.
As per an article Chesapeake Fine Food Group is sadly woman owned by Laura McManus and Kate Glenn. Don’t know them and shame on them for not extending customer service to people who take the time to contact you to ask to please be opted out of catalogs they never requested in the first place. And FYI? Their Better Business Bureau Reviews are awful. Their Facebook reviews are on average bad as well.
Any catalog companies who can’t assist you in getting removed from a mailing list are not catalog companies who deserve the business of any consumer whatsoever.
Rant over.