Why are mattresses sold by the sleaziest people alive? I went to buy one the other day, and the salesman pulls out his “secret list of absolutely lowest prices that he’s allowed to negotiate to”. Wow, you must be a real pal to let me see this top-secret list. Fuck you. Do you think I’m five years old? Is it really necessary to treat me like a clueless piece of shit?
Well fine. I can get over that, but this next insult really made me want to beat his face in: His boss passes by as he’s about to ring me up, and the salesguy says to him, “I just sold him that mattress for <x> dollars (the price listed on ‘the sheet’), is that OK?” The owner’s eyes bulge out of his head and he says “Whaaat? I told you not to sell them that low.”
…Holy shit. Just give me the fucking mattress and spare me the belittling spiel. I almost changed my mind right there and walked out. That crap makes me feel like I’m being conned into buying speakers sold from a van.
So, this is a heart-warming FU! to all mattress salesmen out there.
Something in your story tells me that the salesguy and wner haven’t been in the sales business very long–especially if they let the cusomer hear that they sold you a mattress “that low”.
Good Lord, I too would have walked out of that place in a heartbeat. How offensive!!
Tripler
And just for the record, I did, too! Left a couple of slackjawed salesmen watching the door crack 'em upside the head.
If it wasn’t clear, they did this intentionally to make it seem like I was getting a great deal, when in actuality they were just trying a cheap scam-tactic to reel me in.
I once bought a display stove and the salesman was just this sort. He kept trying to make me upgrade but finaly i bought the thing and paid for it to be delivered. I chose a specific date and took the day off work.
On the day of the delivery the delivery I phone to confirm my stove and refrigerator are coming. The store says what stove? After a while they say oh well someone sold that one to someone else you will have to talk to the salesman. He then says that he can’t get the same model for about two weeks and so sorry.
This was the only time off I had had in a month, and I wasn’t seeing another day off in the forseeable future. I went off on him. Eventualy he offers me another stove suprise suprise 200$ more. I tried to talk to his boss but he wouldn’t put the call through. I did get it for only 100$ more and then he trys to tell me he can’t get another truck out to me that day. I had a fit and he did get the stove out to me that day.
To this day, 15 years later, I still kick myself that I didn’t walk away and that I did not make my next phone call to the better business burreau.
I needed a new mattress about 3 years ago. I went to Fingers because I saw an ad for a good price. Turns out, it was a shitty demo, but they did try to sell me some much more expensive crap.
I then went to the Mattress Firm, a discount mattress place without demo models. It literally was a place with nothing but mattresses and box springs all packed vertically in a modest space. The prices for the size of beds were posted, and the salesman was more just a mattress clerk. Got it for cheaper than the Fingers ad.
But if you are ever in Houston, this is the place to “THROW THAT OLD MATTRESS AWAY AND COME SEE MATTRESS MAC AT GALLERY FURNITURE.”
There’s another guy that has a chainsaw I see on TV as well.
The last time I bought furniture, I browsed at a store famous for it’s "WE’RE WAY OVERSTOCKED!! " ads. When the salesguy started talking about how much stock they had and how they had to move it and were ready to really “deal”, I told him that they must have the stupidest purchasing agents anywhere and maybe they should consider a replacement for the job. And on second thought, I really don’t want to do business with people who aren’t even bright enough to figure out basic supply and demand.
Since this looks like good place to complain about lame ass sales tactics, I’ll lay down a post about one. The wife and I went looking for a used car and really got a performance at the second dealership we visited. We specifically, with no room for doubt, said $15,000 was the highest we would pay for a car. We looked at a few cars around that range and found nothing. Salesman wants us to test drive another car that we immediately know costs more than our budget. When we ask the price of the car, the salesman starts going on about how he doesn’t know the price and will have to ask his sales manager. He gives us a song and dance about how great the car is and we will get a great deal once we go in and talk to the sales manager.
Problem for him is that I sold cars for awhile and know every game he is playing. The car has a code on its sticker that gives the price. He knows the price but doesn’t know that I know it. After asking a few times, I finally confront him and explain that he knows the price based on the sticker. He then comes out and tells us the price, which pisses my wife off since he was lying to us. After this, he then starts begging me to go to the sales office and meet his manager so he won’t get in trouble. At this point, he has fallen into typical sales tactic #2, try to keep the customer from leaving. Use any tactic possible to keep them on the lot. I told him to stick it and we left.
If not for a brief time selling cars, I’d have probably fallen for his routine of not knowing the price and wanting me to meet the manager. I hated that job but sure learned a ton about avoiding typical car selling bullshit.
When I got out of college I went through training to sell Hondas. They tought us every sleazy trick you describe Long Road. The guy training us was this sad, old school kind of salesman. I remember thinking, people don’t still fall for this crap, they know what you are trying to do and the ones who would fall for it are probably trusting little old church ladies. I couldn’t imagine trying to pull off those tactics.
Here is a verbatim quote from my training:
“Most of the customers on this lot are good, hard-working Americans who want some guidance from our knowledgeable staff finding a car that meets their needs and the needs of their family…and I can lead any one of those dumb sons of bitches around by the nose and sell them any car on this lot.”
Uh, is that gonna be on the final?
On my first day as an actual salesman, I called in with a bad case of ethics and never went back.
Heh. We had pretty much the same thing happen to us. Only the salesman was my cousin.
He’d had a run of bad luck, some of it self-inflicted, and wound up working floor sales at a local furniture chain known for *always * being “overstocked” etc. We needed a new mattress and figured we could help him out by going to his store and buying from him.
We walked in, searched him out, fighting off all the other sales guys congregating by the door. Found our mattress. Ordered it up.
Then, as he’s writing up the ticket, he starts the schpiel: “Genghis Bob, my sales manager is gonna *kill * me for selling you this mattress so low! We’re not making *any * money off of this! I’m selling you this below cost!” etc. etc.
The only thing that saved the sale for him was my esteem for his mom, one of my favorite aunts. We were paying the posted (sale) price for the damned thing. . . the sale was done . . . and still he goes into the schtick!
The Gallery Furniture guy in Houston who does his own high-pressure broadcast spiels is right there on my list of top ten all-time sleazeball pitchmen, along with “Dr.” Greg Cynicman of Cortislim fame ("don’t weigh yourself, you don’t want to know if you’re losing any MEANINGLESS POUNDS), and Enzyte Bob.
I wonder if the last two will be involved in promoting their own college football bowl games (there already is a galleryfurniture.com Bowl).
No high pressure, you take as long as you want laying on the beds, and we got a California King mattress for about $500. Very comfortable mattress too.
I just purchased a Mattress from LA Mattress here in Southern California. Out of all the buying experiences I’ve ever had, this one was the worst.
The first night I had the mattress it was so bad that I had to revert to sleeping on the floor. I called the next morning and was told they do not have any kind of refund policy (which was not explained or posted at the time of purchase) and that I would have to call the General Manager to have an exchange “approved”. I did that and was told to go to the store I had purchased the mattress from, and pick out another one for the exchange.
After a few minutes of laying on beds with some wierdo salesman staring at me, I finally picked out a mattress of better quality and of course a higher cost. I then proceeded to sit down at the salesmans desk and tell him my story. When he heard who I was (I guess he had been told I was coming) he became very rude and told me that his “company” was going to take a loss because the mattress that I bought will have to be put in the dumpster. Apparantly they don’t sell “used” mattresses :rolleyes: At that time I should have said “no problem, I will make sure the mattress goes in the dumpster when the new one is delivered”, but sometimes I am not that witty
Anyway he quoted me some new prices and I asked him if he would write them down so I could go home and talk with my SO about it. At that point he just stared at me and didn’t budge, so I leaned over the desk, grabbed his pen and a piece of paper and wrote the figures down myself. I was pretty pissed by then and walked out of the store.
Now, after 15 or so phone calls and having my situation ignored by the General Manager for 4 days, I am finally getting another mattress delivered tomorrow. I have to pay another delivery fee of $49 and the cost of the new bed and I’m thinking I should file a report with the BBB.
I had a lot of problem salespeople when I was looking to by a car a couple of years ago. One thing that I did not want to do was negotiate any sale based on monthly payment. I wanted to know the absolute, out the door, price of the car. Seemed like everywhere I went, not one single salesperson wanted to discuss what the car actually cost, it was all about the monthly payment.
They also tried to make out like they were cutting special deals and special breaks by offering me the factory discounts that every customer gets offered and that every dealership offers. I kept walking away from salesperson after salesperson (and mostly, they were men) until finally I saw a used car at one dealership that looked like a pretty good deal.
I inquired about it, and the salesman was talking to me, when all of a sudden he said he had to go and take a phone call. I thought that was the point where he’d pretend to have talked to the manager and try to hook me, but no, he never came back. Another man came out, a rather old man (in his mid-seventies), and asked if I would like to discuss the price of that car. He told me his asking price, and then suggested a test drive. The ‘test drive’ was a hundred miles, and I had dadsix look under the hood because he is quite mechanically inclined. After the test drive, I go to this salesman’s office to discuss what he’d be willing to sell it for, and I find out that he’s actually the owner of the dealership. He does all his negotiating on a legal pad with a pencil, and has absolutely no problem negotiating the final, out the door price of the car rather than the monthly payment. His asking price was somewhat higher than what I intended to spend, and I told him so. He asked what I was willing to spend, and having looked up book value on that car (because I’d been looking at that type of car) I was able to tell him. He did agree to that price, and then he started over again, with the new final price of the car and discussed financing.
That one worked out well, but I had to slog through like fifty assholes to find that car.
Several years ago, my SO and I were looking at used cars. We pulled into 1 dealership and we were finding nothing that interested us at all. The salesman had been trying his damnedest to get us into the showroom to talk to his manager. We were doing our darnedest to ignore him. So we headed to our car. As we were backing out of the parking spot, I looked back at the showroom, and the manager was standing behind our car, writing down the license plate number. I actually hoped we would get mail or a call from them, so I could give them the chewing out they deserved.
Yup. I still wish I had called him on it. It was even worse because they had cashed my check for the stove. That was my stove they sold. I know why I didn’t at the time, and some of the reasons were valid, but he shouldn’t abe been able to get away with it.
