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  • Report:  #335348

Complaint Review: Kirby Vaccume Cleaner Door To Door Salesmen - Birmingham Alabama

Reported By:
- Shelby, Alabama,
Submitted:
Updated:

Kirby Vaccume Cleaner Door To Door Salesmen
1740 Oxmoor Rd Birmingham, 35209 Alabama, U.S.A.
Phone:
205-879-7655
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
Last night, I had a young, female with bright pink hair come to my door and tell me that she was doing in home demonstrations for a carpet cleaner and although we said no thank you, we have a vaccume and a carpet cleaner we are happy with, she said that she just wanted to do a "short" demo to get credit for her college course (what???) Yeah, right! Mind you this was 7:00 pm and we go to bed at 9:00. I told her no thank you and she asked if she could jut do a small part right there in front of the door. So I said fine, she said she' be right back in a few min. Then in comes 2 young guys, with a KIRBY. (apparently she didn't tell them that I said no, I wasn't buying) The first guy said that the other guy was training and that he needed to demo it for practice, took out about 20 parts to assemble and we knew this would take a while. Then the first guy left. After the frist 20 minutes I looked out side and there was no cars there for him. The trainee told me they have 6 guys in a van and they were all demoing and that they'd be back. After an hour and a half, he asked to use my phone to call his boss, (truley there was no cell service in my home anyway) That was fine, but after reading all the rip off reports, they apparently do business the same way, working form 9:30am unil 10:00pm mon - sat. I was shocked, being in sales myself, I then began to question his pay, commison structure and asking him how in the world did he decide to take a job on commission working THAT many hours, and so young at that! (This was as we were "waiting" for his ride after 2 hours of putting together a huge machine and only cleaning about 4 square feet.) He was a nice boy, but my feeling was that he had fallen for a scam company and was being had. I told him he could make "more than he thought he'd make there" with several other companies that I knew were hiring in his area, that were decent hours and legit companies with benefits,etc..., mind you he had no idea how he was getting paid) I was just in thrawled to wittness this in person as I have read these comments. Apparentley ALL KIRBY salesmen are trained in the same manner with the same promises. Poor guy, I felt so sorry for him. I did not buy as I stated I wouldn't, and he was very nice, but just so ignorant to the sales world and all the opportunities out there that he was passing up spending 12 hours a day, 6 days a week knocking on doors and dealing with alot of people saying no. I just feel this company could restructure their sales techniques to better sell their product other than sending out young people at all hours of the night, and teaching the bad sales techniques. Not only will this bug people, but put a bad taste in the mouths of the youth of today about the sales world. No time to be young... If I wanted to buy a Kirby, I'd go to their website, or a local store and buy it there. Stop sending out people to validate why society hates door to door sales people! This company's tactics hurt their name and their reputation.

Luci

Shelby, Alabama

U.S.A.


2 Updates & Rebuttals

Debbie

Cincinnati,
Ohio,
U.S.A.
By the way - don't fall for the "let me use your phone" trick!

#2Consumer Suggestion

Fri, May 30, 2008

Looks like you were one of the wise ones in dealing with this company. I've read so many reports about the Kirby company, it's almost laughable! One tip I have for EVERYONE...LISTEN UP PEOPLE!!!! If you let these people in your home, and they get the feeling that you're not buying, they WILL ask to use YOUR phone to call their "ride" to come get them. What they are really doing is making sure your phone number is communicated to their supervisor so the incessant phone calls can begin once you kick them out. I didn't fall for this because I saw all about how shady the Kirby salespeople are, on 20/20 or Dateline or some show like that, so I wouldn't let them in my house when they showed up on my doorstep one day. Yes, they used all the tactics...they needed "just one more" demo so they could win a free trip somewhere or whatever the lie of the day was. I kept saying NO NO NO...and it took me telling them that I know how shady they are because I saw a report on TV for them to leave! Anyway, my neighbor wasn't as savvy and ended up with a 3 hour demo, and then she couldn't get them out of her house. The used the old "let me use your phone to call my supervisor" trick, and next thing you know, she's being hounded by a dozen calls a day from the Kirby company still trying to sell her a WAY overpriced vacuum. DON'T DO IT!! DON'T FALL FOR IT!!! DON'T EVEN LET THEM IN YOUR HOUSE, BUT IF YOU DO, DON'T LET THEM USE YOUR PHONE!!!!!


Luci

Shelby,
Alabama,
U.S.A.
Additional info:

#3Author of original report

Thu, May 29, 2008

This sales man was very informative and knew most of his product. However, My carpert is still soaking wet from his demo of the shampooing last night, as my current carpet cleaner never leaves water behind. Maybe he did need practice. My rip off report is not so much against this experience as it is to the company and the boy who was being taken advantage of by this company to work like he is and after reading reports from ex employees of Kirby, knowing he may never see the money he thinks he will. Empty promises for a dirty job! People just don't like home door to door salesmen! Especially selling a 2000.00 machine that we can get elsewhere much much cheaper! Stop being so vunerable!

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