My wife was cold-called by a company working for Space Kitchens - we could have a completely free fully-fitted kitchen if we allowed it to be used as a Show Kitchen. My wife spoke to a supervisor who confirmed that there were no upfront costs. As it was a no-obligation free quote, she arranged for their sales person to call (about 8:30pm). The word SCAM sprang to my mind, but I was willing to give it a go. Forewarned is forearmed!
The sales person was smart and immediately took cues from our house to try to build a friendship with us - similar situation with kids, similar friends, complementing us on our taste etc etc. It would be hard not to bond with them, therefore harder to refuse them (cynic that I am).
The sales pitch stated how they cut out the middlemen and use your kitchen to show to potential purchasers. They also gave guide prices on cheaper (<£5000), middlerange (£5000-15000), and expensive (£13000+) kitchens from rival companies, generally pitching themselves as having the best quality with a middlerange price as they don't have showrooms.
The salesperson designed a good kitchen for us, and gave us a few style selections from his catalogue - the kitchens did look good in the catalogues. The units he showed us were fairly thick wood and sturdy, but still appeared to be flatpack - no bespoke dovetail joints, just those metal dowels and grips that flatpack has. He then asked us how much we thought 'our' kitchen would cost. I guesstimated £8000 based on prices he had earlier compared. He then said that the kitchen we would get should cost someone £*****....we signed a contract to say we won't tell, but you could take a guess at the lower end of the best quality. He then said we could have it for £**** cash as we were in such a good location for their sales drive - interestingly enough he pitched this price at slightly below what I thought it would cost...obviously an easy starting place for him as it's a figure I must consider as good value.
Hang on, isn't this free?
Oh dear, there's been a mistake at the call center. They always do this, the call center gets paid on the number of viewings arranged. But if we want this free we could join their special club where you get 5% percent of every sale they make from viewers of our kitchen, so you only need to get under twenty poeple and it's free!
We were very iffy about this. The only advertising seems to be a board outside your house, and maybe a TV advert. In our area how many people would spend £***** on a kitchen, and there are other people locally in the scheme too.
To make it easier he suggested we take their low cost finance scheme. Eventually we knocked him down to the price of a cheap kitchen payable at about £25 per week. We assumed the total payable was based on the price we knocked him down to. The thing is he never told us the interest APR or term of loan. This was left until the last minute as he pretended he had forgotten to show us other payment options. He hastily scribbled some payment options that all totalled up to the equivalent of £25pw over TEN YEARS!...that means our 'cheap' kitchen would cost about £13000!!!! By this time it was 11:45pm, and I honestly didn't notice this glaring scam as he heavily concentrated on the per week payment and not the term of the loan.
He said if we were unsure we could put down a £100 deposit and have a seven day cooling off period. Now I thought the cooling off period was only valid for cold-calls not prearranged calls so I asked to read the small print. He refused to let me read it until I signed up!
At this point I asked my wife what she would spend £6000 on if she had the money - a kitchen wasn't top of the list. We hadn't seen the £13000 scam at that point.
The salesman then even offered us a 12 month interest free payment holiday so we could save a bit. I knew then that there was a big catch that I hadn't spotted. We told him we wanted him out of the house by midnight, so he got us to sign a form saying he had explained our finance options. The only form he left for us was one stating we were not to divulge the actual prices quoted. The form only had their company logo, but no address or telephone number. They obviously don't want to know us if they can't pressure a sale on the first visit.
After he had gone I came on Ciao and saw the previous comments - oh my god - the payment scam of the ten year loan period - that's when it dropped exactly what we would have signed up for!...it would be interesting to see whether the term of the loan or total payable was on the finance agreement.
Luckily we didn't buy.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
anyone who thinks that they're getting a free kitchen needs their head examined.
penguinlegs 07.10.2004 20:13
I'm glad I read this. I have just been cold called by a pushy saleswoman who tried to convince me to have a person come round and give us a price. Despite me telling her we had no money to spend for the next two years and didn't actually want a new kitchen she insisted it would be still worth my while "as you won't know if you need a new kitchen until we come round and give you our design and give you a price"! I took offence at this as I think I know if we need a new kitchen. I ended up putting the phone down as she was still trying to arrange an appointment as I was telling her I wasn't interested. I had a fear that they would send a saleperson round who would refuse to leave until we signed up!
miles1 29.09.2004 16:39
I have sent a message to your Private Guestbook- would be grateful for a reply.
Sep 26th, 2004
very helpful by (100%):
