Complaint Review: Direct Buy

We spoke to some folks and have redone 6 houses over the past few years, so we should have known better, but we live close so we were curious. Here is how direct buy works.

The sales people make their commission from selling memberships, not much if anything, from selling the merchandise. To join: 1) You must sit in a small room with high pressure sales people for about 90 minutes watching videos. 2) They do not allow any questions before, or during the time you sit in the room watching the "presentation" 3) They will not quote any prices or allow you to "look around" before sitting thru the 90 minutes of videos. 4) They won't tell you any of this ahead of time.

It was a huge waste of time. We went to "the Dump" outlet just down I35E and found better products for less money, available immediately. We asked for and received discounts at Lowe's that gave us better prices than Direct Buy had on cabinets. Plus we could take back the pieces at Lowe's that we didn't need and got our money back immediately. Direct Buy doesn't actually carry many brands, but can "get anything" from various distributors. Gee, so can I if I have a tax ID. Much of what they do actually carry is previous year models that the vendors don't want back if they can help it. Outlets have this stuff cheaper, with no membership required. Returns are drug out for long periods of time, because Direct Buy gets to use your money for capital. An interesting observation: They made a big deal about us coming on time to beat "the crowd", well the other, very few, couples that were there with us were all from a long drive away. Dallas is a very competitive market so the only "fish" were from outside the metroplex where they don't have access to much. If you can comparison shop easily, you won't find the deals at Direct Buy to be worth the time or membership.

Joe Dallas, Texas
U.S.A.