Complaint Review: Alchemy Home Study

Alchemy Study Program sits on my 880 dollars for more than 8 years!

My sister and I decided to enroll for a so called Alchemy distance course which, at the time was offered by Flamel College(P.O.Box 22309, Sacramento, CA 95822-0309 USA).

On 23 February 2007 I made the payment of 880 USD(Eight hundred and eighty U.S Dollars)  with online order number 00005684 to complete the enrollment for two students.

the course was to consist of six modules and after receiving each module we were to pass an online examination and then receive the next module's study material.
Our study instructor was at the time Dennis william Hauck.

Following the progress we were making in the course the Alchemy study center was taken under the guardianship of Alchemy Home Study, thus our instructor was also (changed to a so called Dr. Alex Hayden.
I would like to bring this to full attention that no such profile exists anywhere on the internet with this name and also the only info available is on alchemystudy.com/faculty-staff.htm
which contains a small photo with unclear face, so my assumption would be no such person exists in reality.
Upon this event the new management changed the policy and declared that overseas students would be able to apply to receive the entire study material at once.

Naturally we submitted a request for the latter and The sent the entire 4 modules for two in one package( containing Educational CDs and Manuals- Ref.No.CJ309620720US, total value of Rs.3000, weighting 3.5 Kg) without informing us of the track id and date of mailing. Keep in mind that they were supposed to mail 2 separate packages for 2 students because we were 2 separate students and just being a brother and sister doesn't mean they should wrap everything in a huge box and mail it.

And the local post authorities brought out excuses and demanded that we either clarify what are the contents of the package or pay 300USD(equal to 11360 Indian Rupees) as bribe to release it(this is separately lodged under the following link complaintsboard.com/complaints/india-post-c333323.html).

Desperately we kept on contacting Alchemy Home Study demanding a scan of postal invoice which declares the content as study materials after sending several emails on  finally on 20 April 2010 I got what was more similar to lecture from Mr. Hayden that made the following claim
"Just sent you an email with content(we never got such a mail) you are responsible for all customs and costs...."
 
So frustrated, our legal actions with Indian post did not lead to any results and post master in the local office informed us that; either we pay the bribe or they will send back the package to USA.
Following these bitter events we started a set of communication emails to Alchemy Hme Sudy begging for a new package to be dispatched with Private companies(DHL, TNT, Fedex) and we also acknowledged that we would pay the entire price as well. But no response came from their side(there were total of 30 emails sent from April to September 2010).

Meanwhile we decided to file their organization as a fraud for not returning even a single email, on Complaints board(on 2011-03-26 under: complaintsboard.com/complaints/alchemy-home-study-sacramento-california-c363835.html#c934279)
After six months we got a rude response from Alex Hayden on 01/09/2010 with the following text:

"You have libled us in several places on the internet and have done unrepairable damage to our reputation. We have filed a complain against you with the following deposition:

These are two customers, a brother and sister, who enrolled in the Alchemy Home Study Program over three years ago. They paid for the entire course but were placed in the inactive rolls because they did not submit any exams in the required six-month period. So they did not progress to the next modules.

After they promised to work harder, we agreed to send them all modules at once. We sent two complete labs, two sets of manuals, herbs, chemicals, DVDs, CDs, books, drawings and all supplies. These items were seized by Indian customs and nothing has been returned to us. We have received several hyterical emails from them saying they were "beaten and harassed" by customs officials.

These are very expensive materials we provide in this course, and our profit margin is non-existent as we are non-profit volunteers. We will not ship more materials to them if they are going to be seized by customs. We will of course issue a full refund should the shipments be returned to us.

Dr. Alex Hayden
AHSP Director
AlchemyStudy.com"

I would like to hereby denounce this so called Dr. Alex Hayden's cheap claims

1-Alchemy home study is not at all a recognized institution by any educational body at the national or state level within the united states or any other parts of the globe, thus this organization has absolutely no reputation to begin with.

2-During our enrollment we were never told that there is any deadline for each module. I demand that if AHS has any proof that says otherwise, kindly make it public.

3-we never made any promise to study harder as we were studying hard enough and taking this good for nothing course so serious.
Again if AHS has any proof from our side that promises harder study please kindly reveal it.

4-The custom did not detain the package and local postal authority did, and as I mentioned in the separate link on complainant(complaintsboard.com/complaints/india-post-c333323.html), if customs demands a payment it has to go through the legal channels but in our case the post master just demanded 300 USD for no reason and did not agree to give even a receipt for it.

5-when a parcel is dispatched to a customer in any part of the world it is customary for the dispatching party to provide either a scan of the postal invoice or the tracking number. In this case Alchemy Home Study did not do so and turned a blind ye on the matter.

6-Apparently their staff are still waiting for the return of the package. I wonder what valuable thing would have been inside the package to be lost?
it has either returned or been lost in either cases I demand that Alchemy Home Study shed some lights on whereabouts of the package.

7-This organization has purely failed to fulfill their part of the bargain which is to simply provide their pupils with study materials, so naturally they must refund the full fee after eight years.
8-it is none of the students concern that how much is the value of the study material and whether r not Alchemy Home study has financial problem in providing them to us or not since no such thing was written in our agreement at the first place.

giving the above accounts I demand a full refund of 880 USD from Alchemy Home Study and I shall not accept any excuse since it has been far too long.