After dark, smack dab in the middle of dinner...

by Karl
(Arkansas)

Admittedly, my wife and I are young, newly weds and first time homeowners. We rented in fairly-shady neighborhoods for a couple of years while I finished college and got my degree and a good-paying job to go along with her good-paying job. So, we finally are able to afford a nice-ish home in a nice-ish neighborhood (think quintessential white-collar, middle-class neighborhood with dozens up-on dozens of new construction cookie cutter homes).

Two men knock on our door at 6 p.m. It's dark out because it's January. The very first thing they do is offer us a free gift. We grab one and then they ask us if we were busy. I tell them we were in the middle of dinner. The "boss" guy says the demo will only take about 30 minutes so I stupidly let them in.

The "boss" gives us a few very awkward high-fives over who knows what because neither of us are listening. We have a one-year old whose bedtime is around 7 p.m. and, as anyone with a kid that age knows, routine can be everything for them in some instances as is the case with our one-year old. So the "other" guy is told by the "boss" guy to go get his stuff and get set up for the demonstration. "Other" guy comes in with a big box and starts getting out the vacuum and all of his attachments while "boss" guy says he has to go somewhere else and will be back in about half an hour.

"Other" guy keeps saying he wants to clean our carpet in our "highest traffic area." After about 30 minutes of cleaning our furniture he still hasn't gotten to the carpet. He keeps feeding us with some sob stories about how he has five kids and recently got remarried and how he's been going at it 7 a.m. and was missing his date night with his wife. We finally stop him when he asks if he can clean one of our bed mattresses because at this point it's obvious his demonstration is nowhere close to over.

He starts off by telling us how the vacuum normally costs around $2,000 but he could probably get us down to around $1,000 with zero-down and payments of just "a dollar a day". We keep telling him we can't afford that right now and that we're not interested.

Finally, "other" guy calls "boss" guy and goes through his routine over the phone. He even mentions specific salesman-y pricing options to his "boss" over the phone and even lets it slip that he's "not too far" into his demonstration even though it's already 30 minutes in and we were told it would take only half an hour for the entire demonstration.

We finally get "other" guy out the door and he stands in our driveway for 10 minutes waiting for a ride. I stand at the door watching as the van pulls up and "boss" guy and one other guy get out of the van to help "other" guy load his stuff up in the back. I can't help but think I badly messed up letting them into our house.

He asked what my wife and I did for a living and I told him so he has a pretty good idea what our work schedule is. Now I'm just terrified I'm going to get home after work one day next week and our house is going to be picked clean. Our stuff isn't even that nice.

I hope this was just a case of an over-agressive financing sales pitch scam and not a group of shady looking guys in "nice" clothes staking out house to determine whose house in a decently-nice neighborhood they want to come back and rob. I feel stupid, and dirty and if it is a true Kirby sales pitch/routine with no ill-intent, then Kirby should feel ashamed of themselves for allowing their sales people to be so intrusive.