No chairs. No refund. Church loses

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Pastor Willie Waver said he sat in his car and cried after his most recent call to a Georgia business ended with a hangup in his ear. "I was like, what's going on," he told Target 8 investigators.

All he wanted was the return of the $3,000 deposit or the 100 comfy purple chairs his congregation ordered in April from Church Chair Industries Inc in Rome, Georgia.

He orderd the chairs in April. When they didn't show he started calling and got different reasons: The fabric was back-ordered or the chairs themselves were not in production yet because the company was working on back-orders.

"So I called them back again and they said, 'No, didn't anybody tell you? You can't get your chairs until we've got a whole truckload of chairs to deliver,'" he said. "I know that can't be true because I work for a shipping company and they can ship any amount. They can ship one chair."

In fact, he showed Target 8 investigators a single chair the company sent as a sample before he placed the order. He finally cancelled the order in July.

He said the company promised a refund within 30 days after the cancellation, which would have been around August 2. Still no refund.

And it looks like he may wait a long time.

Target 8 investigators talked to pastors of two other churches, one in Minnesota and another in Massachusetts, and both have been waiting for months for promised refunds.

Pastor Waver said his small congregation of about 60 members raised the $3,000 themselves. Many are low income, hard working people who don't have much money, he said, But they wanted to replace the hard wooden pews with the softer chairs and fix up their sanctuary in the small, storefront church called No Greater Love Ministries on South Division near Hall.

The company is still selling chairs online and Pastor Waver said it is offering 75 chairs of the kind he ordered, now at a lower price.

"The exact same chair. So why can't they send us those 75?"

Target 8 investigators talked to Pastor Jim Johnson of Motley Free Methodist Church in Motley, Minnesota, who said he ordered chairs last November and didn't get them or a refund.

Still, the company was willing to take Pastor Waver's order and deposit in April. "They couldn't produce his chairs. Why would they take my money? That seems like that would be a criminal offense," he said.

He told Target 8 he complained to the police in Georgia and was told that the company had fallen on hard times and they wouldn't prosecute.

Pastor Waver said he knows of a half-dozen churches in the same situation. One, a church in Oxford, Massachusetts says it, too, complained to the police in Georgia and still has not heard back on whether there is anything law enforcement can do.

Target 8 left messages for officials with Church Chair Industries for comment, but no one returned the calls.