Complaint Review: Dixie Home Crafters - Charolette North Carolina

Dixie Home Crafters hired me on January 16th, 2013 by January 21st, 2013 when they had me date my new hire paper work for...they had changed their name to Paradise Home Improvements. We were given the explanation for this was because the owners had a "falling out" and split the company. None the less, I have top notch sales training and was excited to sell a high quality product to represent. However, Jeff who runs the Charlotte office held a sales meeting where they explained the name change and gave all of the sales people tablets to use.

His advise to the "team" during his "training" was..."Insult the customer if you have to and don't be afraid to tell them their home looks like crap and is lowering their neighbors property value." REALLY???? This is how you sell??? That isn't selling....selling is making the value one dollar greater than price. I brushed Jeff off at first because I worked for George out of Greensboro office and thought at the time, Praise God I wont have to deal with this jerk on a daily basis. Well little did I realize Jeff and his sidekick Brad would be why I ended up sayingThis is bull and not for me.

The sad thing is, they have a quality product and once installed it looks great and does what they promise it will. However...The way they go about doing business is rude, unethical, and MUST BE STOPPED!!! I have the names and contact information for five homes I was sent to where people are fighting cancer, all but one of them were in Stage 4 cancer. Each one of these homes the families told me..."I didn't want to set an appointment, I told the person on the phone I can't hardly pay my medical bills...

They just kept pressuring me and all they wanted to do was give me a free bid. So rather than fight with them anymore I gave in." None of these families had the money for any home improvement as they could barely pay to just stay alive. This broke my heart and I mentioned it at every turn to my boss...yet it kept happening. I am an ovarian cancer survivor so this topic is near and dear to my heart and made me sick beyond words to think they would bully people fighting to live into an appointment just so some telemarketer could get out of the hot seat and set an appointment. WOW!!!

I worked out of the newly formed Greensboro Office and begged to just get my own clients and not run their ill qualified leads...they were not ok with this and never let it happen. Instead I logged 2,000 miles on my vehicle, made 5 sales and have received no money outside of a $500 advance they gave me that I did not even ask for. On the pay stub it said advance paid back 25%x4when I questioned my boss about this, he assured me that he would not let that happen and I would not have to repay the money at a 25% x 4Because I was just not going to cash that check.  I have begged and begged for a breakdown of my pay still owed me and I have yet two weeks later to get it.

I was told they mailed me a debit card where my check would be deposited to almost two weeks ago and it has yet to come in the mail.  Once I calculated my miles, the 120 hours of time I had invested in them, if they paid me what I feel they owe me, I would of made $5.00 an hourI am unsure about you reading thisbut I cant live on that amount of money and really dont know anyone who can. When you look at the reality of what I have been paid so far, they have cost me $1,100 in wear and tear on my car at .55 cents per mile and have paid me less than half of that and nothing for the hours worked.

This company has their product set up on what is known as a PAR sheet (this inflated figure is the bare minimum the product can be sold for) and then lets the sales person go in and try to get as much as they can over that PAR number. If they are selling Gutter Guardian the sales persons only money is 1/2 of whatever they get over PAR. Siding and Windows, Soffit and Fascia all pay a flat 12% across the board so they do their best to get as much money as possible and one sales person informed me when selling a Bathroom job, he will inflate the price enough to give them gutters on the front of their house for "Free"...it is not free...the customer just paid for them...he just allows it to be perceived for free...so he looks like a hero...and he gets paid a bonus for making a different type of sale than what he was sent to the home  for...he leaves with two sells and an average of two thousand dollars in his pocket, per sale, is what he told me. This is all well and good for him; however this means the customer overpaid by as much as $4,000 in some cases.

Smoke and mirrors is their company moto. As an employee of the company I have requested to know my pay with no reply...I have requested to know the Owners contact information...No reply...Dealing with this company is like dealing with the Wizard of Oz and no one will let you see the man behind the curtain.

They sent me to one ladies home who informed me...the last man who was there...who gave her a bid of $17,000 for her bathroom remodel...she let me know...she had already told him this story...her grandchildren robbed her blind, she has no money, she is on a fixed income, and is in her mid-eighties...she was not comfortable taking out a finance contract for seven years or even four as one...she could not afford it...two, she already has a tub she loves with the jets in it...three she is unsure how long she will live.  She said she hated I drove so far to see her but there was no way she could do business with us. She also told me she told the person who set the appointment the same thing.

I turned most of these awkward situations around and ended up just being motivational and praising God with them, every home I left thanked me for not pressing for the sale and for understanding they couldn't do anything.

I have over $80k worth of sales training and I am a master closer...but I also have ethics...To me selling is not pressure, you meet someones needs, exceed them, then make the sale. You don't bully, pressure, and beat them up or worse yet...insult them. You may get some success like that...but it will be a "flash in the pan" form of success and you will end up with a page full of people writing how badly you suck for the world to see.

I have every intentions of informing everyone about this company. They sent me to the home of a man for what they call a Re-Hash, this means another rep had been there before and did not make the sale so I was instructed to pretend I am the manager and I am just doing a follow up visit to see how we served this customer...When I got to this home an older man came out, his house was in need of serious repairs, he informed me of his fixed income and the hole in his roof that he had shown the other sales person. He then spoke the obvious..."I told them on the phone I could not afford to do anything right now, if I could afford to do something, I would start with fixing the hole in my roof." He then went on to tell me he felt pressured to make the appointment and couldn't get them off the phone...so it was easier to just make the appointment than fight with them.

I had one lady who I get to her home and she said..."Oh I forgot you were coming, you see, I told the people on the phone, I just buried my husband of 21 years of marriage. I refuse to make any major financial decisions right now." I had managed cemeteries for 5 and 1/2 years so lucky for me I had a lot of advice to give her about the AARP's guide to being a widow and other grief material she could get, we talked about her and all she was facing and I left the home. I called my boss AGAIN, just sick...How can I work for a company that has no respect for people!!!!

They had no respect for my time, wear and tear on my vehicle, and my gas...They in one day would send me from Archdale where I live to Winston Salem, then to Liberty, back to Thomasville and these were they type of leads I was given. Or better yetthe last appointment I ran for them was over an hour away at the Virginia border, to an address the GPS did not recognize, after they provided NO help in finding the house, we get there to discover, the man never set the appointment and used to install gutter guardian and if he were going to get it, he would get it from where he used to work at a reduced cost. By this point I was over being run all over the state for appointments that were just an insult to the customers and myself.

Any truly qualified leads I did get, I did make the sale, however I did it ethically, and without pressure. Yet I have still not been paid on ANY of them. One young man who worked with me, he rode along with me, because one he was new to sales in general and 2ndly he had no valid drivers license and could not go out on appointments on his own until that is fixed. He worked there for four weeks without so much as a dollars pay.

They are breaking the law because they force you to be certain places at a certain time which means you are entitled to minimum wage at a minimum and this young man got nothing. To this dayNOTHING. They took out no taxes on the $500 they advanced me and like I said have still not paid me what I earned.  Instead they keep giving me the run around. I really am just sick about how they do things.  

Jeff and Brad out of the Charlotte office are 1,000% to blame for how things are run. They are rude, non-supportive, unethical, and are going to make sure DIXIE Home Crafters awful reputation carries into Paradise Home Improvements as Jeff is a part owner so he is going nowhere. Needless to say, I left because I cannot afford to work for free. I want nothing more than the money I earned. I also think they should have a general price list the  customers can see instead of allowing the sales person to hand write prices and pick numbers out of thin air. It is shady and not good business practice.

There are lots of companies who offer the EXACT same product they do. Do your homework and shop around, get more than one bid. If someone pressures you, then make them leave. You do not have to be treated that way. I refuse to do business that way. They do have the best products but since so many other companies carry the same product, you can do your homework and then do business with a company who puts SERVICE, Ethics, Integrity, Character, above Money. I learned years ago, if you serve the people first the dollars take care of their self.

If by chance the real owner Joe from Texas reads this, please look up my contact information or ask George for it, I would LOVE to talk to you as there are MANY more unethical practices I have witnessed there and I have been Trying to reach you. Your contact information is not on Google, Paradise Home Improvement is not listed except on FB and that is a page Jeff made and gives no way to reach you.

Be Blessed all who read this and educate yourself before you make ANY major purchase.

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