MasterGuard--pyramid/cult?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A friend said she won a free dinner for six and I and some others friends were happy to accept the invite. After the fact of accepting we find out it’s a dinner for MasterGuard which is apparently a network of “independent reps” selling home fire protection stuff. Including a cool red bat for smashing out your windows.

I am compelled to go to enjoy the offerings of the local (yum-yum) steakhouse where it will be held, but what am I in for here? I am prepared to be in full pseudonym/false address mode, but how hard will the sell be? Can I get drunk or will that reduce my guard too far?

Has anyone dealt with, eaten with, or even sold for, this network?

2

Don’t go. Best not to get involved at all, even for a free meal. If you aren’t accustomed to out-smarting the smarties, don’t go.

3

Check out this horror story on the etiquettehell.com forums regarding one of those steak dinners.

If I was subjected to the crap that poster went through I’d take that cool red bat and smash the kneecaps of those responsible.

At least you know about the sales presentation beforehand.

Another vote for not going.

4

Thanks for the warnings and link! I have e-mailed the inviter to ask if she has given any of our personal info to the MasterGuard rep.

5

Eh, what’s the worst they can make you do…eat a free dinner? If you go in with the mindset that you’re not going to buy anything no matter what they tell you then I’d say you’ll do ok. Its not like they can hold you against your will.

6

Do what a retired acquaintance of my parents used to do. Of course he was retired and had a lot of time on his hands.

Whenever he got an invitation to go visit a timeshare, with the bait being the offer of a free television or something, he would accept the invitation, and after the tour, when the salesman brought him into a little room (to get your prize you had to sit through a presentation, usually one hour in length) he would sit in his chair, pull out both of his hearing aids, and stick the hearing aids in his pocket.

More than one salesman, after seeing this, gave up talking to him before the sales pitch was complete and allowed him to leave.

7

I’d go and continuously try to steer the conversation to Amway.

8

No personal info has been communicated to them yet, so I hope to (bolstered by the nervy friends I am going with) withstand the pitch. It’s a really good steakhouse.

9

Go and don’t bring a checkbook or credit card with you, and don’t sign anything.

Done

10

Best. Advice. Ever.

11

OK, update because I attended the dinner last night. Three of us devised pseudonyms out in the parking lot but our cover was blown by our very stentorian friend who shouted out one of our real names when we came in. Anyhoo, I skirted the host who wanted us to check in, and headed to our table. Upshot is I was able to enjoy an OK dinner, MST3K the presentation with my friends, and escape unscathed. At dessert later our friend who invited us said that she thought she had won something in getting invited to the dinner, as if everyone who fills out the entry card doesn’t get invited. :rolleyes:

Along the way, here’s how everything was presented:

An opening prayer blessing the food and praying for our troops who are over in Iraq so that we could be there enjoying this dinner (no joke!).

Patriotism: (After all, this was All-American MasterGuard.) The most popular brands of home smoke detector are made in Mexico by BRK Brands. Later inspection of the MasterGuard product showed that it is indeed “Made in USA”.

Christianity: “Who are the people most hurt by a fire? I’m not worried about myself because I’m a Christian and I’ve been promised eternal life. But I worry about the people who love me that I would leave behind.”

Scare tactics: Go home and dust off the back of your TV. If your TV is plugged in it is pulling electricity and could generate heat and apparently the dust could burst into flame. Somehow I’ve never heard of that happening. Seems like it would happen all over the place, as he said he has every audience telling him about never having dusted their TVs.

“Who has a junk drawer? Who has batteries at home? Who has steel wool in their house right now?” Then he demonstrated setting steel wool on fire with the battery terminals. [Cool trick, but it’s not like my junk drawer is going to rearrange itself at night, causing a fire.]

“How many people have fire insurance? How much is it really worth if you’re not alive to pick up the check? Will $1M really make up for losing a family member?” [Depends on who.]

Faulty use of statistics: “Traditional ionization smoke detectors have been shown to fail in a fire 58.5% of the time. What if you were ready to board a plane and the stewardess told you that you had a better than half chance that the plane would crash? Would you get on that plane? <<Sheeple: NO!>> Well, that’s the chance you’re taking every time you put your head on your pillow at night.” :rolleyes:

You’re an idiot if you don’t: He invited us to sign up for a time he could come talk to us, No Pressure! and frankly if after what we saw that night we didn’t want to sign up, well…implications of our numbskull status.
So anyhoo, it was pretty slick in that he scared us about fires and then never made any real promises about his product, just left us to assume it is superior to the junk we have now. If we have him over he will let us know how much the products are.

And he kept saying, “By a show of hands, how many people…” I thought it would be fun if we could indicate in other ways, such as barking.

12

[golf clap]
Splendid work there from Anrnold’s friend. Splendid. Creative, robust method that avoids any need for rudeness or confrontation.
[/golf clap]
Hmmm… I wonder how much fake/non-functional hearing aids cost?

13

Did anyone fall for the spiel? And did people really go “NO!” to the airplane analogy?

14

C’mon, you’re a Doper. If anything called for a “Cite, please!” this does.

(Naw, I understand the position you were in. Best to stay quiet and avoid being singled out. But I had to say it.)

I asked my wife, who is an audiologist. She said it would be possible to get them, but had no idea how much they would cost the person buying them. If she needs non-functional “floor models,” she usually can get them at no cost from the manufacturer. But to make them appear useful to you personally, especially if you wanted to convey the impression of a seasoned hearing aid user as you remove them for the sales pitch, you would probably need to sit for an impression, then the molds would have to be made from the impressions, then you’d have to be trained on how to insert and remove them… Time taken for these services and necessary materials used would all be billable.

Sounds like (no pun intended) it’s most economical just not to go to such presentations. Unless you really are hearing-impaired and need functional prescription hearing aids.

15

I saw people filling out the cards so I guess they were willing to have someone come to their house and not pressure them at all into replacing their current equipment. And yes, they totally went along with the rhetorical questions he kept throwing out there!

I know it!! Part of me wanted to shout out but the rest was busy remembering all the tactics to report back here. :slight_smile:

16

Mrs. D_Odds recently forced me to attend a similar pitch. The guys were polling the husbands about their reactions to being ‘asked’ (like husbands are ever asked to do anything ;)) to attend; I said that I’m not spending one dime under any circumstances. They didn’t kick me out right then (unfortunately), but they didn’t try to sell me afterwards.

17

Okay, so if %58.5 of smoke detectors are faulty, then just buy 10 times as many as you think you need, e.g. twenty for a small 2-story house, then on average they will work perfectly and it will still cost you less than that (I assume, at least.)

18

I’ve become good at answering questions that have only one right answer with the wrong one.

Salesperson: Do you like to save money on your long distance phone service/electricity/water buffalo feed?

Me: No.

Always throws them for a loop. I can even do it with the harder ones.

Salesperson: If you could save a big-eyed, tiny, starving, pox-riddled, AIDS-infected child in Africa for the cost of your daily newspaper, wouldn’t you do it?

Me: No.

If I’m feeling nice, I’ll say, “Yes, but I’m not interested,” and hang up.

I understand social engineering, and I have to fight the urge to answer the “right” way, but I just realized one day that it didn’t matter if I gave a negative answer to one of those questions.