I made the misfortunate error of expressing interest in Direct Buy. We are contemplating remodeling versus building and we were told that this was "the best thing since sliced bread". After recieving nightly phone calls (at 9:00 at night) fromtheir sales reps, we decided to try and attend one of the open houses. I told them we would not be available until after the holidays but we continued to receive the harassing phone calls pushing the us to commit to a certain date and time.
We finally were able to free up a Saturday afternoon to attend. We received calls 3 nights that week (all at 9pm) to "confirm" that we were still coming. The girl was obnoxious! She talked to me like I was a 4 year old! She asked 4 times if I was married and my that spouse would be expected to attend. 4 times if our income was over $40,000, 3 times that the program would start promptly at 12:30. (
Late arrivals would not be let in) She told me 4 times that our daughter was not to come with us. Had I made child care arrangements? What route would we be taking? What time would we be leaving? Were we leaving home with enough time to allow for travel/traffic difficulties? I'm surprised she didn't ask if we allowed time for "potty breaks". I'm in my 40's and have traveled all my life... I can make an hour trip with out a police escort!
Once arriving, we signed in and waited. Then taken to a room for the "presentation". Then hit with the Membership Fee. Yikes! They didn't tell us that it was a "now or never" offer until then. Big time pressure to buy into it. We explained that we were'nt ready yet (we are just listing our house) but would be within the next 6 months or so and would like to join at that time. "Oh no you can't, once you go through the presentation, you must join now or not ever..." IF we "would have told them upon arrival that we wanted to wait, we would've been asked to leave and reschedule another open house".
No one offered this to us or even mentioned it "upon arrival". Our salesman said "well, they should have... Who greeted you and I'll talk to them about that". But, "now that you've seen the presentation, you'd have to join now or this offer won't be extended to you again". Then the pressure intensified.."it will pay for itself over time... Can you really afford to pass up these savings?"..."seriously, can you not see the benefit to this program?". We were then left alone again "to think about it", "I mean really think it through, you'd just be crazy to pass up this opportunity".
Needless to say, we left pretty angry. I can see the benefits in wholesale shopping and really wanted to enroll in this, but on our time table. Not strong armed into it. And I can't see paying for something for 6 months or more that I have no need for right now. Not in todays economy. And they raked other companies over the coals about the "bait-and switch" tactics...
DebMcEwen, Tennessee
U.S.A.
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