D. Mark Lindell: 2007

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Dangerous Job

And you thought that window washers had a dangerous job...

http://www.flixxy.com/helicopter-cable-inspector.htm

Yikes!!!

Direct Buy - Buyer Beware!

Anne and I attended a Direct Buy Marketing presentation at our local Direct Buy location here in Hunt Valley, MD. We are planning on buying some end tables and a coffee table for our living room and I stumbled across them during some googling.

I signed up for a visit without really knowing what it was all about. Looking back, I should have checked it out before I wasted 2 hours of my life I will never get back.

Here's the summary:

Membership for 10 years
Initial signing cost was $5100 for 3 years. - You don't find this out until 1.5 hours into the slick presentation
It must be payed up front or can be financed at 17%.
$199 each year after that up to the 10 years.
After 10 years you can pay at the current yearly rate.
The prices are at manufacturer pricing
They make claim retail marks up products from 50-70% to justify their financial model
900+ manufactures (I never saw a complete list)
You must pay a 8% service fee on most items
You must pay freight on all items
Of course you pay tax
Prices on electronics are no better if not worse than local retailers.
and the drum roll please ...... You must take the deal before you leave!

It was interesting how the entire group sat together for the presentation and we asked to "not ask questions until afterwards" Afterwards we were split into individual groups with a sales men assigned to each of us. I can only believe this is so we didn't hear the questions of the other folks.

One couple walked out as soon as the presentation was over. They guys voice was shaking as he made a lame excuse about a dog in his vehicle. Clearly he was embarrassed and wanted to get out of the building.

The presentation was emanating such a feeling of sleaze that I was waiting for a multi-tiered marketing approach to sell my friends for a membership discount. That never happened, oh well. I couldn't help but feel I was about to buy some swamp land south Florida!

The salesman did say we could go over and review all the catalogs and pricing information. I asked for lists of manufactures and percent breakdowns by categories. He just talked around it and never produced paper.

The membership price did not shock me as much as the fact that the offer was only good for my one and only visit. They claimed it was to prevent people from leaving the DB center and using DB pricing as leverage against local retailers and therefor invaliding the trust relationship they have with the manufactures. A slick argument that I don't buy.

Circuit City has a policy that they will match or beat other local advertised prices or give you money back. They clearly state they do not honor club pricing because your discount is based on a membership fee. Apparently local manufactures and retailers don't have issues with Sam's Club or Price Club. Why would they have a problem with Direct Buy?

Related Side Story: I refuse to make any large purchasing decisions before I perform research. As an example, I recently purchased a new Mazda CX-9 and spent quite a bit of time researching and negotiating. When I finally purchased the vehicle (at the invoice price) the financial salesman was shocked when I did not take the extended warranty. It was stated as "you have to get this now or leave it" Or course I said "No, I don't purchase anything without researching it" and we drove home in our new car. When I got home I did some googling and found out that there are plenty of companies that offer extended warranties on any vehicle and the initial price was half of what the dealership was offering.

Things I learned after I got home from Direct Buy:

Lots of people are unhappy with DB
a possible looming class action lawsuit?
You can't place orders via the member website.
Each DB location is franchised. That is why you see so many different membership pricing.

I must say the sales tactics were unscrupulous and offensive. "Mike", our salesman indirectly call me an "idiot" by saying "anyone who can not see the value in this program is an idiot". The approach would set off red flags in any half way intelligent consumer.

The financial argument made was that for my income level I would be saving over $125,000 during my 10 year membership. R...i...g....h....t...?!@*&

I can only come to the conclusion that Direct Buy preys on the meek and the uninformed.

The only scenario where you could justify the $5100 is if you were certain to be spending over $30k on major home improvement items or furnishings and they had all the manufactures you were interested.

Personally, I only buy certain things that I can put my hands on or see the actual item. This is not possible with DB. For instance, I recently bought a True treadmill after hours of research. I initially was going to buy one via the internet for pricing reasons. Some sold exclusively via the internet got got great reviews! I just could not bring myself to purchase one without actually trying it out. I purchased one locally from Gym Source on black Friday and got a great deal. It was delivered and 1 hour after use it was shutting down and displaying an error code. My local retailer sent and True professional repair man to my house and it was fixed in an hour due to a connector falling off. Would my experience with that purchase through DB have gone the same way? No. Also, DB does not carry True products.

I hope my stories and justifications help you to not waste 2 hours of your life at a Direct Buy center.

Mark

Read more opinions @ infomercial scams

Thursday, October 04, 2007

I showed Alex the last post and he read my opening remarks. He was very upset when he realized that his misunderstanding of the storm trooper saying "skunk". He really wanted to change my post but I said it was cute and I didn't want to change it.

I left for work while he sat busily typing at the computer. I got to work and showed a co-worker the post and there it was, 3 comments from Alex! He commented and retyped all 20 episodes making the correction from "Skunk" to "Scum".

The second comment he made was as "Mark Lindell". I guess that was his attempt to void my post.

That just goes to show you that SpongeBob typing really does improve your children's typing skills.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

My son Alex is 7 years old and has mapped out the next 14 episodes in the Star Wars saga. He was practicing his roman numerals and came up with this excellent list. All spelling and punctuation is his own.

My favorite is 18... Storm Trooper's Skunk. This is a misinterpretation of the Storm troopers saying "You'll never get away you Rebel scum"

Alex’s 20 Star Wars Episodes

I. A Phantom Menice
II. Attack of the clones
III. Revenge of the Sith
IV. A New Hope
V. The Empire strike’s back
VI. Return of the Jedi
VII. Jedi Outcast
VIII. Knights of the old republic
IX. Return of Jangofett
X. Anikin Skywalker Ghost’s revenge
XI. Yoda and the sith
XII. U.F.O
XIII. Luke and the revenge
XIV. The Jedi returns
XV. Bobafett returns
XVI. Jedi Pop
XVII. Han Solo’s Light-saber
XVIII. Storm Trooper’s Skunk
XIX. The Rocket and the Death Star
XX. R2-D2’s Pet From the Jedi

Alex says "All these episodes are awesome!"

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Here's a web site that has tons of copyrighted movies and other videos online. They are not hosted on the site but I can't imagine that it will stay online very long.

http://www.videostored.com