I went on to Space Kitchens web site to have a look at there designs, before I knew it I had a phone call from there call center asking if we would like a free design with no pressure. I thought this sounds good and booked a time. The day of the design came and the call center phoned to say that Max would be the visitor and gave me a code to give him so we would get the 50% off and £1000 trade in for our kitchen. 7pm came around and a lady turned up at the door, obviously this wasn't Max but didn't think much of it. She was pleasent enough and went through what Space Kitchens were all about. We warned her that we needed her to be finished by 9pm at the latest, she agreed.
After drawing a number of diagrams showing the poor quality sector (MFI, B&Q etc) she went on to describe the middle sector and top quality sector. She then got to the point and said you can get top quality kitchens at low prices from Space Kitchens because they didn't have show rooms and didn't advertise. Everything seemed to be hunky doory even if she was eating into her time allowance.
She then went on to tell us all about this great scheme where if we became a show kitchen we could have massive savings and could possibly win our kitchen for free. Alarm bells started to ring. Then she went on to say that if we recommended a friend and they bought a kitchen then we would get 5% and she would get 2% (considering the crap car she was driving I don't think she made much money from this scheme).
It was now 8.30pm and still she hadn't hardly looked in the kitchen let alone design anything. Now she went on to talk about how to finance the purchase, she said if we took out there 10 year finance deal then you can pay it off like a credit card. As i work in the finance sector I asked her what the APR was on this loan, she said,"it is an incredable 1.69% per month". I said to her that she would need to quote the APR as monthly interest is confussing and illegal to quote but she didn't. In case you are wondering it works out well over 20% APR.
Finally she goes into the kitchen whilst we look at samples of doors and work tops. My wife actually works in the construction industry and designs kitchens amoungst other things for a living and was not impressed with the quality of the cabinetts. After 5 minutes our design was complete (the only thing we really wanted from the visit), her design was basically the same as the layout in the kitchen at present which was useless as we wanted space saving ideas. Even she admitted when my wife started quoting certain regulations that she wasn't a surveyor (he would come in 3 days if we signed up). The time was now 9pm.
Thinking that she would take five minutes to price it up we let her stay a bit longer but time was getting on. By 9.30pm she finally got around the price. It started at £12k!!! Our kitchen is extremly small so we just laughed at her, she then phoned her boss (the illusive Max) and the price came down to £9k. Still not impressed she phoned him again and it went down to £6k (does this sound like and episode of Rouge Traders or Watchdog). This price was only if we signed on the dotted line there and then - so much for the no pressure visit. We had had enough and told her to leave nearly having to man handle her out of our house, time of leaving 10pm (three hours after she walked through the door).
My advice is DON'T LET THESE PEOPLE IN YOUR HOME!! They are rip off merchants. There kitchens are no better quality than MFI, B&Q etc and the price is well over the odds.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Unethical, rude and disgusting sales techniques. I know they need to earn money but some of them are about slimey as used car salesmen. But it doesn't sound like you wanted to buy a kitchen anyway. Just wanted a free design?
hollywoodmum 22.08.2007 09:48
God i've heard so much bad stuff about these on ciao they are definately one to avoid
petal99 22.08.2007 09:29
Awful, you shuld have kicked her out of your house!!!
Aug 21st, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
