I got an invitation in the mail for a "no purchase required" giveaway from Family Savers. The only catch was I had to agree to a tour of their showroom. Which I did.
We had a great salesperson give us our tour. I mean really, this guy was a good salesperson. But he was a liar and over embellished somethings, which I discovered after the fact.
So he was such a great salesperson that we decided to sign up and paid our down payment. I think what made us sign up on the spot was the "this is a one time offer" catch, and if you decline you have to sign something saying you decline before you leave. Also, while we did not at the time have an immediate need for furniture and such, Family Savers offers a "grocery savers" program that supposedly would save us about 40% of our grocery bill per month with coupons from every brand imaginable. The salesperson even read numerous brands off the list, all name brands. We figured what we would save on our grocery bill would be more then our monthly membership payment (b/c we financed the membership fee) and eventually who doesn't need new furniture/appliances/etc.
The contract gives you three days to get out of it before it becomes binding so as soon as I got home I researched the company and his claims.
First of all, he lied about the company being country-wide. They have two locations (the other is Columbia, SC) so if we moved out of state that would pose a problem. Depending where we moved in state we could still be hours away from their showroom. So that lie irritated me.
Most importantly he over embellished the grocery savings. When I first looked online I thought I must have the wrong website b/c there were such a small amount of coupon options, and definitely not for all the brands and products he had mentioned. Unfortunately I was not at the wrong website and we didn't use any of the products that there were coupons for.
Then I checked the BBB and saw they have an "F" rating. So that was not reassuring. I read through the complaints on this website as well and ultimately decided to cancel my membership.
To cancel you have to send the contract (not a copy either so make yourself a copy!) by certified mail to them. They say it could take up to 12 business days to receive your refund and it literally took them all 12 days. They didn't credit my debit card until the 12th day after they received my cancellation. However I did get my money back so it all ended well.
Also I must say that as part of my research I quoted them for a price on a bed to see how much, if anything, they could save me. (I wanted to be thorough before cancelling). I had recently lucked out and bought a bunk bed off amazon.com that was wrongly priced (they actually corrected the price before I even received the bed but i still got it for what their site said when i ordered it). I paid $185 and had free shipping for the Powell Spokane Vanilla Twin Bunk Bed that sells for almost $400 shipping on eBay and over $500 shipping most other places. So since I already knew how much that bed retailed for I requested a price quote from Family Savers and their price was $175 (plus shipping). So they can most definitely save you a lot of money, at least on some things, unless you frequently happen to luck out like I did once. But since I didn't ever order any thing from them I can't say how reliable they are or what kind of customer service they have.
If I would have had a need for furniture or whatever else at that time I would have remained a member. But I didn't.
Also, not everything is marked up as much as some things are. Clothing and furniture are marked up way more then other things such as electronics. And Family Savers doesn't offer savings on women's clothing b/c the styles change too much. Either way make an informed decision before you get stuck in a contract you can't afford for something you may or may not ever use.
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