It was a sunday afternoon. I was both supervising my own two small children playing in the street, as well as playing with them in some cases, as well as with the other children who are our neighbors. My children alerted me to the man who was standing on my front porch, probably had rung the doorbell, although my wife was taking a nap and did not answer the door, so I came over to the porch and said "how can I help you?"
He informed me that my wife had made an appointment for a free room dry chemical carpet cleaning. This was a double lie, since when I told him to please wait while I entered the house to tell my wife the free cleaning was here, my wife said she never made an appointment.By now the salesman had followed me uninvited into our house and proceeded to pitch me on the free room or hallway dry chemical carpet cleaning, which I assumed was a carpet cleaning service.
I asked my wife if she thought we should do it, she liked the idea of someone cleaning one room in the house no charge, so we agreed. The risk of spending money was low in our mind as we knew carpet cleaning services don't charge that much money for their service. And the guy certainly seemed like a nice guy.
He went to his truck to get the cleaner, which was a vacuum/shampooer all in one unit from Kirby Vacuum, new out of a box. Then I realized he was probably selling vacuums.
I went back outside as I did not want my young children to play in the street unsupervised, fearing bad / fast drivers, and I asked my wife to take care of the demonstration. Later I came back in and discovered my wife did not watch the demo but continued with her nap.
By now the salesman had a few dozen filters the size of large coffee filters with sand and grit and dust on them, laid out on our dining table and kitchen table for display.indeed it did seem amazing that this vacuum had so much suction that it was able to suck up this stuff which the salesman said was from between the carpet and padding.
I brought in my wife to see also. She too was amazed.
The salesman then proceeded to shampoo one area of our dining room carpet, although he did indeed use water, it was not dry. This is now lie number two.
The pitch and demonstration happen so fast and slick you don't realize the lies until afterwards.
The shampoo job wasn't anything different from any other shampoo unit we rented before and did ourselves. It was presented to be a superior shampoo by the salesman of course, in his persuasiveness and polished, slick sales pitch.
Now the flyer, brochure, and price list were presented to us on the vacuum/shampoo product. $1,800, available to pay a $500 down payment plus monthly payments if we wished (at very high interest - the interest rate not being disclosed.) And we had not used the vacuum ourselves to try it out.
Being a bit of a softy in front of pressure sales people, I told him politely that it looked like the vacuum must be high quality and high engineering, but that we simply could not afford it. And that I thought he should be selling it door to door in Beverly Hills.
The salesman proceeded to explain how he could sell us the unit for $1,500 since it was a numbers thing with his sales. I told him now a 3rd time that we simply could not afford the vacuum no matter how strong it's suction.
Then the price was dropped to $1,200 — $100 down and $64 per month for 2 years (which adds up to $1,636 including interest - you do the interest calculation!)
My wife always negotiates down a salesman, while I don't have as much skill at this as she does, and by now the salesman had been there over an hour, perhaps two, and there was something on TV I wanted to watch at 6pm so I left the room and let my wife nickle and dime the salesman so that hopefully no sale would be agreed upon.
More time passed, perhaps 30 more minutes, and my wife had agreed to buy the unit for $100 down and $64 per month, as the salesman was filling out a contract. He had good timing as our still working just fine Hoover Wind Tunnel vaccuum had many plastic parts and a few plastic parts had broken that only amounted to inconvenience, not affecting the working function of the vacuum. And my wife liked the idea of having a vacuum with metal parts that would not break and become unconvenient.
At this point I felt powerless to grab the contract, tear it up, and throw the vacuum and salesman out of the house for two reasons - 1. My civility, and 2. My wife made the decision.
Note the salesman of course never consulted me about this sale although he knew I did not agree since I told him 3 times no. Such high pressure door to door sales people I think must be narcissistic in nature as they could care less about anyone's wishes but their own. This was blatantly obvious with this Kirby vacuum salesman.
He finally left, my wife seemed happy as she thought she got a good deal at $1,200, even though she knew that our Hoover was a top of the line store bought vacuum at $300 or so (can't remember the price, somewhere near $300 I think.)
The feelings of buyers remorse continued for me throughout the evening. I got only 3 hours of sleep as a result. The next morning I googled Kirby Vacuum and found this site and some others, when I fully realized we had been scammed hook, line and sinker. I also tried the vacuum for the first time and came to the conclusion that it picked up less debris than our Hoover Wind Tunnel vacuum, but was going to cost us 5 times as much. I did think the self propulsion of the Kirby was superior. But I knew we had been ripped off.
I wondered if the filters we did not actually watch the guy put on our tables were some sort of trick - perhaps he brought the filters in dirty, or he vacuumed under our fridge while we weren't looking, or he took debris out of his pocket and put on the ground during his "demonstration" or something.
No matter if the debris from the demo was a trick or not (when I tried the vacuum the next morning myself there was only a very small amount of debris in the Kirby dust bag - less than we get in our bagless Hoover Wind Tunnel remember,) I still was not happy at all about paying $1,600 for a vacuum cleaner/shampoo'er.
Although my wife had the invoice, which since I did not see I did not know that it had the 3 day cooling off period because of California state law, and that I could return the product for a 100 percent refund within 3 days. So I had the idea to threaten the independent sales company (the phone number was on the flyer the salesman gave to me) which was an hour and a half drive away, with reporting the unethical, high pressure, intrusive, dishonest door to door sales experience to every news outlet in Southern California.
The office said (after asking, again narcissistically "why did you buy it?",) that I could return the product. And she was worried about the media threat, since I reminded her her sales would be lower if her sales people could not get into the door of the houses they were trying to sell. The salesman called me right after that, and was also worried about the media threat. And said he'd be by to pick up the vacuum the next day.
Which he did - angry but without saying hardly a word. I had him sign and date an acknowledgement of receipt legal document I had written up, and he gave me the two other invoice copies and the credit card slip (my wife had put the down payment on a credit card - which tells you the shape our savings is in.)
I was finally at peace. But when I had told my wife I had returned the vacuum, (she was in another city talking to me in the car by cell phone,) she was angry at me. I think over time she will agree that I saved us a lot of money. But now our relationship was affected. Which lasted - I write this on my wife's birthday and it is getting a tad better today but it's been 24 hours since I returned the product and she has been angry - not talking to me - since then. At a time I have been trying to improve my relationship with my wife.
So I am at peace with saving the $1,600 that was nearly virtually "pick pocketed" from us in our own home, but the last few days of my life were affected with a unhappy mood, which interfered both with my spending my sunday afternoon with my children (if they had been hit by a car I would have been unhappy the rest of my life,) and not spending time with my wife going right into her birthday, which has not helped the overall relationship which I have been making efforts at improving.
If this sort of buyers remorse and wasted hours and days of your life sounds like a good idea to you, by all means invite the sales person in for the "free room dry chemical carpet cleaning." There is no such thing as the free lunch.
George
Anonymous City, California
U.S.A.
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