There you are sitting on the couch trying to relax after a long day at work, and the door bell rings. You think to yourself “Who could this be? Nobody uses the front door.” This should be your first tip off. When someone comes by during prime time they are usually there to try and give you a “great deal” on something which 99% of the time is just a huge scam.
Let’s start off with what they have. These days there are two main salespeople; there is the guy/girl that comes to your doorstep trying to sell you a physical product. For example, “Hi I am Such and Such with the XY company, would you like to see the great deals we have on our meat products? Here, let me show you what I have.” Then, they bound back to the truck to get the product before you have time to say no. Most of these salespeople are trying to get you to buy something that that XY Company paid little to nothing for which you yourself could get at the store for much less. To me, paying someone to bring something to my door for extra money isn’t worth it. If that was the case, I would order a pizza; at least they cook it for you before bringing it to you!
The other sales guy/girl is the one trying to get you to sign up for a service, upgrade your current service, or to convince you to switch to their service and leave your old one. For example, “Hi, I’m So and So with the XY Company. Don’t be alarmed, this is nothing serious. You are still using XY Company for your cable TV right? Well, let me tell you about the great new deals we have for you today!” Personally I would avoid this kind of salesperson at all costs. It doesn’t make sense to me. If my cable/phone/internet/satellite/etc. provider had all these great deals out there for me, then why not just cut out the middle man and send me a flyer in my next bill? I would also like to think of myself as a smart consumer; all I have to do is pick up the phone and check on my service. If they still want my money they will try to sweeten the deal, especially if I say that another company is offering the same service for less money.
Now let’s get to the part that surprises a lot of people. Let’s talk about the actual people themselves, and who they target. After having a man in his mid twenties come by my house several times over a few month period trying to sell me meat out of the back of a truck ( not a bad looking truck, it did have a freezer unit on it), I became a little worried that maybe this guy had ulterior motives. I live in an average house with average neighbors in middle-class suburbia, but there are elderly people and children here, too, and I was concerned to see him so much. So I decided to do a little research to learn more about this man, so I called his company from the number printed on the side of his truck and inquired about a job, just to see what kind of qualifications the young man had to have. What I heard out of the mouth of the man on the phone made me want to lock all my doors and call the police! After telling the man on the phone that I had a few “bad marks” on my record, I believe I told him I had a breaking and entering and theft of property, he told me as long as I didn’t “stab, shoot, or kill someone, then I could work for him.” So there was a guy out there on my front porch trying to sell me frozen meat who could be your average Joe, or he could be a child molester, a rapist, a burglar, or a murderer. I decided to keep my door shut and locked after all.
As for the service people, I had a good friend who had recently graduated college with a communications degree get trapped into what she thought was going to be a great opportunity to excel in the world of marketing. She soon found out that this was not the case. The oldest person in the office she worked at was 26 years old, and according to her a typical day went like this: First everyone would come into the office and do a pep talk, then they would play motivational games (which she said got out of hand, like being in a sports bar when the teams are tied and there are 10 seconds left on the clock). Next came the singing and chanting, which served only to get a bunch of young adults all fired up. She says they were aggressive, like dogs ready for a fight. After that, they would change clothes, pair up, and drive to a poor neighborhood to go rip people off. She said they would go into a large city and go door to door in areas known for a low income demographic. Basically, from what she told me, she would talk to people who didn’t have very much money, and make them think that they could get a better price on “bundling” their services, which sounded good on the outside so the majority of people rushed to sign up. But as we all know, when you rush someone into something (which is what she was told to do by her employer: rush the person so that they don’t think about what they are doing before they sign up), since most people don’t read the fine print. So she would make a commission off of a lot of people. The worst part about it is that the customer can cancel service at any time, but most people don’t realize what has happened to them until the first bill comes in and the cancellation paper says in fine print that if the service is not cancelled before the billing cycle is ended, then the customer is still responsible for that bill, even if the services are cancelled afterwards, so by this time the salesperson has already made their money from your loss.
So please, I beg of you: save your money. Some of these people are good, hard working people. Sadly though, there are a lot more that are only out to get your money. And if you let them, they will. I am not saying don’t buy from someone at your door but please don’t let them rush you into making a decision you will regret. If you feel rushed or threatened, just tell them no thank you and shut your door.
