This is a copy of the latest letter I sent to Oreck:
I am writing out of desperation. I have spent so many hours on the telephone to your customer service center that I feel like I've gotten to know them like family. Concerning your '30-Day Risk-Free Trial', I would like to remind you that it isn't even close to risk free.in fact, I have found quite a few people who have either paid for equipment they never received from you, or were never refunded for equipment they returned to you. I will, however, focus only on my particular instance during this letter. The trial information says:
30-Day Risk-Free Trial
If you don't love the Oreck product you've purchased, you don't keep it. Simply send it back, no questions asked - you pay no return shipping costs. There is absolutely no risk, and your satisfaction is guaranteed.
This statement would be quite reassuring, had my family not felt betrayed, been dissatisfied, obviously took a great risk, and have paid dearly for it. Okay, here's what happened:
While I was deployed in the service of our country (with the US Army), my wife heard about this 30-Day Risk-Free Trial' and decided it would be a good idea to try it. When she received your vacuum cleaner, she tried it for about a week. She concluded that while it was an excellent vacuum cleaner with many more options than our current vacuum cleaner, its price simply outweighed the added benefits. She followed the no-risk', easy instructions for return.
A few months later, after the tracking number no longer seemed necessary and had been misplaced, my wife was on the phone with me in tears, because she was receiving bills for a vacuum cleaner she didn't have. I figured I could just give them a call, and straighten this out.
Your customer service was adamant that they would not help me unless I could provide them with a tracking number. I asked them if they had records of it, and they said they did not. I queried as to why they kept all outbound tracking numbers, but not the numbers on the 'peel-back and return labels', or if there was a correlation. They responded by saying that it wasn't their problem, that it was my responsibility. I tried contacting the shipper for assistance, but they said they couldn't be of help without the tracking number. They said I should just contact Oreck, they keep the tracking numbers. I played this phone tag game for so long with Oreck, trying to get the shipping number I knew they had, that by the time I realized I would never win against a giant corporation like Oreck, it was too little, too late.
They sent me to collections, without a second thought to the fact that they were making me pay for a vacuum they had in all likelihood received. As a side note, when I asked what happened to the returned vacuum cleaners, the manager refused to answer, saying that wasn't what I was calling about, and I wasn't allowed to discuss anything not pertaining to that conversation. I noted that if I returned a vacuum to them, and they are reselling it at full price to someone else while still making me pay for it, then it does pertain to the conversation. I don't blame him for being so rude, I was getting close to the truth of the matter. This is when he notified me that he had placed a note in my file saying that I was no longer to be helped by the Oreck customer service department.
The $399.90 bill had skyrocketed to $559.10 by the time it was paid off, through a collections agency less than three months later. So, in three months I had paid over one hundred and fifty dollars above the purchase price for a vacuum cleaner that had been returned. I thought that would end the nightmare, however, as soon as I took a sigh of relief, my credit was flushed down the toilet by the collections agency.
As my credit report (the only serious charge on which is because of Oreck) prevents me from so much as getting a cell phone (even though I have had a few, and always paid my bills) I decided writing was the only recourse. I am well aware at the futility of trying to get my money back from a corporate giant such as Oreck. (I gave up on that back when this whole thing started)
I am, however, very concerned with the very real asset of my credit rating. The fact that this was sent to collections is ridiculous, and probably quite illegal, and all I want is for the collections part to be removed from my credit rating, and the Oreck part to say paid in full, and it should say that the account was closed by the consumer' since I had to call several times, even after all of this, to get the account closed. Oreck felt that it had done such a good job at getting my money, it continued to try to get me to purchase more equipment on this financing account. I suppose that means that Oreck felt it could ruin my credit and force me to do all future business with it? Perhaps I will never know the truth.
Well, that's the letter. I have since moved, and still can't get a cell phone without paying a $500 deposit, and then on top of that all the fees are rediculous. It will probably be cheaper to just buy a cell phone company.
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