My wife and I were "referred" by a neighbor to a Kirby Vacuum Co. sales representative recently. My wife said "yes" to the sales woman on the phone who falsely advertised that she represented a "carpet cleaning company" but then added as an aside that "of course we also happen to sell these vacuum cleaners."
Well, about a week ago a sales representative in an unmarked van showed up at night (around 6) to do the cleaning and demonstration. In retrospect, I wish I had intervened and cancelled the appointment. We let him in, and he seemed fairly nice and was of course very enthusiastic about showing us how the vacuum cleaner works. But for part of his presentation he kept getting us to give out neighbor's and friends as referrals, to save money on the machine.
Then he talked about how we would be entered into a drawing for $1000 worth of groceries, and that he would be able to win a trip to California if he sold a machine to us --- that night only! We told him that we don't make purchases on the spur of the moment, so could he please leave us a card or a brochure so we could talk it over and think about it. He then asked to use our phone so he could call his "boss". He took the phone outside and I can only guess either haggled or pretended to. He came back in and brought the price down (from $15,070 to a few hundred dollars less).
We said we still didn't want to purchase on impulse, and he started to get flustered, saying that if we wouldn't buy the machine that night, we probably wouldn't ever buy, and he wouldn't get to take his California trip. Oh brother! I told him I don't buy expensive items out of sympathy, only for the need of the product, and he started to slowly pack up all of his gear.
The bottom line: the Kirby vacuum cleaners do work I suppose, as his demonstration seemed to pick up a lot of dirt that our other vacuum cleaner seemed to have missed. But the price, the pressure tactics, the lack of any card or printed marketing information, and especially the pressure to buy immediately that night or the whole deal was off technique left me suspicious and feeling wary.
After he left, I checked online to see if anyone else had any complaints, and found this link:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/in_home/kirby.htm
I'm sure there must be some satisfied owners out there who have these vacuum cleaners, but there ought to be a law in Vermont against this kind of unlicensed sales tactics? I'm just not sure what we have in our state or whether this kind of sales behavior is permit regulated or not. My only reaction is a gut feeling that this sales technique isn't right, and that people who get called by Kirby should just say "no."