My wife and I are directbuy suckers, I mean members. So, you won't get any "heard from a friend" or "I have an uncle..." or any of that stuff. Not here. I'll give you the straight skinny, straight from the horses butt, I mean mouth. It's the one time in my life that I have been openly scammed and fell for it hook line and sinker...even though my wife was begging for us to leave the place!
If you are going to buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff all at once for your home...it's not a total ripoff, but only a partial one.
However
I want to disclose some "secrets". First of all, it is "cult-like". What I mean about that is this. We were referred via some friends. They called us every stinking day until they finally got us into their "showroom" for a demonstration/lecture about their products and how they work. They made us both come together. The reason we had to come together is that if you are married and just the husband (or wife) goes alone and opts out, the husband doesn't get to join or vice versa. EVER. Once you've been to one of their secret handshake seminars, they tell you then that you must join on that day, or you can NEVER join. I'm not kidding folks.
Price-
We joined in 2005. It cost us $4800.00 to join. We had to pay that night. I think the varying prices you're hearing are because different "owners" of the directbuy franchise can pick and choose the cost, but don't quote me on that. Anyhow, back to the debacle...
Seminar-
A lot of high pressure. But, our close friends were members, so it couldn't be that bad...right? They walked us around the showroom, with exhibits of clothing, flooring, watches, rings, coats, tables, chairs, sofa's, etc. with two price tags on it. One is retail, then their price...which is less than retail, sometimes significantly. However, most of the stuff is in catalogs on shelves. You can't "touch" or "feel" what you're buying. You have to trust a picture. Also, the scammer, I mean salesman, told us they sold Rolex watches. They didn't have a Rolex watch in any of their catalogs. I searched that night after joining. When I asked the salesman to help me find the right catalog, he told me that it was one of those over there...and pointed. All this great service from a guy who had just lightened my bank acct. by 4.8k...go figure.
The internet-
If we go online, log in and look at stuff, there are no prices listed. We have to "submit a request" for the price. It gets emailed to us. I guess it stops every joe smart out there from seeing their real prices. I've found sunglasses cheaper at the mall than what they listed them for. Go figure.
The catches-
There's an 8% handling fee on your purchase. When you order something, it goes to the warehouse. You have to go pick it up. They charge you 8% just for it coming there. They didn't tell me about the 8% when I bought in. I found out later on when I made my first purchase. Oh by the way, it was hardwood flooring (made by Anderson, red oak, engineered flooring, "lincoln harvest" was the type). Anyhow, I ordered 5K$ worth of wood, so you can see that I was a little upset about the 400 bucks extra just for them storing it overnight. They never touched the stuff and didn't even help load it.
They also arranged for the flooring guy to come out and lay the stuff. He was reputable, did great work, but hardly spoke English. Still, they saved me about 5500.00 from the estimates I got from different sources for the wood and labor. He (the flooring layer) told me that if I had called him out of the phone book, he would have bought the stuff and sold it to me for the same price I had paid via directbuy. He gave me his card, told me to call my friends who needed hardwood flooring installed and bought. He'd give it to them at his cost. Boy, did I feel like a winner. Still, all in all, I broke even for my hassle as the 2 different estimates to do my floor and the wood material involved was waaay more expensive. It's like I said originally, if you are going to make many, many big purchases, you'll do great. If you aren't, don't bother. Here's another reason.
That 4800.00 bucks I spent for membership only gets me 5 years. After 5 years, I have to pay 980.00 a year from then on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nope, wasn't told that on seminar night...if so, I missed it!
Their customer service sucks. Getting a callback is like pulling teeth. Forget about it. They'll call the heck out of you though if you aren't a member yet! They called us nightly, then we paid and never heard squat from them.
Also, there isn't a directbuy outlet in every town, or even every larger city. On some things, you HAVE to go to the showroom to make the purchase. Others, we can order online. Sometimes it's cheaper, sometimes not. Since I've already beaten them on the 4800 buy in, I don't feel so cheated, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. I would have done like 7 of the 10 at the seminar that night did....WALK OUT!
I would have to tell anybody whose interested in getting into the club, DONT. If you look around, shop around, play your cards right, you can get almost the same deal...without the hassle, no callbacks, lousy customer service, the initial buy-in whammy and the secret handshakes.
If you want to know anything more about them, just pm me. I'll be glad to furnish you information on my lesson learned.
Podunk
Directbuy member since 2005, Jacksonville, Florida branch, Phillips Highway.
