My husband and I feel like such fools! We agreed to sit through a Kirby sales pitch to have our living room carpet cleaned for free - and we're paying for it with ruined living room carpeting.
The local Kirby office asked us to vacuum our carpet before they arrived, which we did. When they arrived, the sales rep insisted on vacuuming again with our vacuum. He turned his back to us and, the next thing we knew, he had pulled up a 1 1/2 foot long strip of our 2-year old berber carpet! He insisted that this was what "normal" vacuums do, even though we had just used the same vacuum with no problem.
He insisted that Kirby would take care of what had happened. Then he pulled out the Kirby vacuum and began going back over the spot he had just pulled up, pulling it up even further. We were astonished! We asked what he was doing and he explained that he wanted the Kirby to pull up the carpet, because he was going to claim that this was what had happened. He supposedly got on the phone with his manager, who agreed that the insurance company would cover the damage they caused. We were told that an adjustor would be contacting us right away.
This became the rep's sales pitch for the rest of the night, as he explained repeatedly how you could expect this from a normal vacuum (though I have never had this happen in my life, with this vacuum or any other). He again got his manager on the phone, who explained that because they felt so badly about what they had done, they were going to sell the unit to us for $750. This seemed like a good deal and we accepted.
After 3 days of waiting for an adjustor to call, we realized we were not being told the truth. I called Kirby, who said they had no record of our carpet being pulled up. They spoke to the sales rep, Tim Lange, then called me back to say an adjustor would be out in 3 days. Needless to say, we were now nervous about the whole thing and decided to return the vacuum - which we did. We got our old vacuum back (which we have been using again for 3 weeks, and it has not pulled up carpeting anywhere in our home).
Three days later - no adjustor! We called Kirby, who told us that because it was our vacuum that originally pulled up the carpet, they had no intention of ever sending an adjustor to our home. When I explained that it was their rep that did the damage, they said that did not matter. When I brought up the fact that they purposely pulled up more carpet with their vacuum, she laughed at me! She said that would never happen and then she hung up on me.
I called Kirby's 800# and spoke to a rep in their Customer Service Department, who told me that any damage done by a Kirby rep was their responsibility. He transferred me to a supervisor, who assured me that they were not responsible for what their local distributors did. She did say she would talk to the local distributor to find out more information.
For several weeks, now, both the local office and Kirby Customer Service have strung me along and are not returning my calls. To this day, no one has asked to look at my carpet. The local office was rude and insulting, and the customer service number just tries to pass off blame.
Kirby, when you choose to sell your products exclusively through local distributors, you take on a measure of responsibility for what those distributors do. When they do things right, you take credit for it - but when they screw up and try to scam the consumer, you have to be responsible for that, too.
By the way, a couple of months earlier I had the people from Rainbow vacuums in to do a demo - and they never pulled up my carpet, either.
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