Pyat and the Hard-Soft-Water-Sale

[pyat]

The interaction was as follows:

The sales rep ("Kathi") tried to get velvetpage to sign a purchase agreement tonight, saying that we will forfeit $4000 in special soap that she can give us, but ONLY IF WE BUY NOW. velvetpage asks to think about it till Friday. Fine, says Kathi, but you won't get the $4000 of soap.

I was putting the girls to bed when this was being said, but came down when I heard Kathi talking about signing. I'd also been in the living room for most of the pitch. I ducked out as soon as I'd seen the product samples, about 2 minutes in. Anyway, I stomped into the conversation like a surly dinosaur and told Kathi we would not be buying tonight.

I should note that my hair was disarranged and standing up, and I was generally wrinkled and untucked from wrangling the girls. Kathi didn't seem impressed by me. I should have been wearing an undershirt, carrying a beer bottle and smoking a stub of a cigar, to complete the picture of clumping male Archie Bunker stereotype.

(I should have growled, "I hear soft water is for homos and commies!")

Kathi objected that I'd not heard her sales pitch, or seen the demonstration. What she didn't know is that I'd been busily googling and doing price research in the living room while listening to her spiel in the kitchen. The bulk of reviews that struck me as detailed and informed were along the lines of "It works fine, but it very overpriced." And, I'd been turned off by her patronizing sales pitch, which was also rather misleading, as we shall see.

I told Kathi that we'd been told she was coming to test our water on behalf of a "community service organization." I told her that velvetpage had asked the appointment setter, point blank, if they were selling anything, and was told they were not.

Said Kathi, "Oh, I'm not selling anything. I'm here to demonstrate the problem with your water, and show you a solution that we have."

That comment made me very mad, and the following interaction was rather terse.

Sez I: "How much is it?"

Kathi: "$37 a month." (This is an outright lie - it is actually $97 a month. She knocked off $60 a month to represent the "savings" we'd realize from not using as much soap or skin lotion.)

Me: "For how long?"

Kathi: "120 months."

Me: "And we don't get the soap if we don't sign tonight?"

Kathi: *pause* "No."

Me: "Then we aren't getting the soap."

Kathi: "Do you know our warranty?"

Me: "Is it on the Internet?"

Kathi: "It's a lifetime warranty."

Me: (I mumbled something generally non-committal.)

Kathi: "You didn't see the demonstration and..."

Me: "I know we need a water softener, but I don't think we need a Rainsoft one."

Then I stumped along back upstairs, wishing I'd told her to leave as soon as the pitch started.

As she was leaving, Kathi privately told velvetpage that we could "probably" get the free soap if we referred someone.

Comments

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

That is so amazingly ridiculous.

And there is NO WAY that there's that much savings in soap. My Mom has very hard water here, and spends very little on soap.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

No soap is worth that.

My mom made lye soap. Once :)

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Pyat; we had a sales pitcher come into our home who was similar, trying to sell us a Kinetico softener. We were sufficiently oogied by her presentation to be very leery of the product, although, who knows, it might be very good. Instead, we had a non-name, industrial type softener installed by the plumber we hired to hook up our slightly reno'd kitchen plumbing. He sold it to us for a modest sum. It does use softener salt, which is a steady outlay, but according to the plumber guy, "you don't need fancy gadgets, and yes you pay out in salt, but in the long run, this softener will cost you less because you won't replace it or repair it more than maybe once for the rest of the time you own your home", or similar advice. In short, the plumber's advice might have been every bit as much a sales pitch, but in the end, we trusted him because of his approach and the recommendation for his services we got from someone else. The softener sales lady lost her sale because of her pitch, pretty much regardless of the product she was pitching (actually, the hideous price of her product was also a factor).

[archai.livejournal.com]

I may, possibly, have spent sixty dollars on soap in the last two years, and I am a fairly clean person (who also maintains two separate travel sets of soap). Moreover, these last three years I've had ridiculously hard water, while my entire middle and high school careers, I lived in a house with softened water. I assure you there is no measurable savings in soap. The effect of individual lathering preference is FAR more pronounced.

That woman needed a harder and higher stone wall. Also, $11,640 water softener WTF. That's not a water softener, it's a stupidity tax.

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I really hate that sort of condescending sales pitch. It ranks right up there with people telling me if I don't repent I'll go straight to hell.

[bandersnitch.livejournal.com]

This is a fine example of door to door sales rule #1.

Always have the decision makers present. The fact that she was presenting to your wife and not both of you.. I would have predicted the outcome instantly even if she was selling tickets to the second coming.

Your wife was never going to buy with you not present. Kathi would have been wise to have saved her time and insisted you take part in the presentation. Then at very least she would have stood a chance to convince you of her routine.

Granted you can count, so convincing you of what she was presenting seemed relatively unlikely anyways.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall something about misleading sales tricks here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks

but when I looked I couldn't find anything.
But then this was much more productive:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=isi&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=scam+products+water+filter&spell=1

It seems that a lot of "water filter" product sales involves a scam or a fraud.

I am SO glad you wasted her time for her.

[scodiddly.livejournal.com]

My policy is a 24 hour waiting period on any major purchase. Way more often than not that's the time I need to figure out how it's a scam or at the least a bad deal. Maybe I've missed out on a one-time deal. Maybe... but that would be far outweighed by the ones that would have been a waste if I'd signed right away.

[catsarah.livejournal.com]

Unless she had a complete inorganic water lab with her, there is no way she could tell you what was wrong with your water. Period.

I remember talking to one of these idiots that left a pill bottle sized sample bottle to "test" your water for various things. I looked it, I looked at them and told them point blank who I worked for and in what department I worked (I signed drinking water reports for water testing facilities). They scuttled off with their tail between their legs.

This is the procedure you must follow in order to take a drinking water sample for testing in Ontario. http://www.ontario.ca/drinkingwater/132586.pdf

It normally involves precleaned 1-2 litre bottles from a certified lab. Anything else is bullshit. You should call her up and charge her for the 2 hours of time you can never get back.

*is in pain and cranky*

[relee.livejournal.com]

Oh poor Pyat and Velvety-page. *sends hugs*

Fraud

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

In the U.S., I'd beg you to contact your state's Attorney General.

In Canada, I don't know where you report frauds like this, but I bet I can find someone who does, if you don't.

AIIIIIEEEE!!!!

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

You should consider memorizing the "Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?" routine for future encounters.

[feywild.livejournal.com]

Are in-house sales pitches common in Canada? They seem to have gone out of fashion here.

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be tempted to buy. Shifty sales pitches give me a rash. Your water probably isn't anything like detrimental, and this idea that you're saving money by spending tens of thousands of dollars is a con, pure and simple. Your Google-fu is strong. I'm sure you could find a much less shady product to use if you absolutely must have a water softener.

Lee.