For maybe the past 20 years, in various cities in Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska and Michigan, I’ve come across signs promoting a queen-sized pillowtop mattress (usually a set) for sale at a ludicrously low price posted at busy traffic intersections in communities where I’ve lived. Here’s what they have in common:
-They are hand-written in fat black marker on white poster board.
-They refer to a “queen-sized pillowtop mattress.” (Or more typically a “set”)
-They always have the qualifier “new.”
-The price is ridiculously low, ranging from $98/ set to $198/ set.
It can’t be a coincidence. Have you seen these? Have you ever called the phone number? Is it a MLM business or some such thing?
Some quick googling of the phone number and some other key words brings up actual mattress websites and facebook pages.
It’s probably a dirt cheap mattress (set) that’s really uncomfortable and it’s used to get you in the door. Once you’re there, you realize it’s a cheap, uncomfortable mattress so you browse around and buy a more expensive one.
What I’d be curious about is if they’re making real money on them and actually want to sell them, or if that’s close to their cost and they’re hoping you don’t buy it.
Car dealerships do something similar as well, or at least they used to. You see a new car listed in the newspaper that had a really good price. Then you’d get down to the lot and find out that it’s a completely stripped down model with no power anything and might not even have a radio or AC. The dealership bought that specific car just so they could run the ad.
I also see at least one place that’s selling them, but the deal states that you put $40 down and finance the rest. If you want to see how legit it is, ask them if you can pay for it all upfront. If they put up any resistance (ie, 'no, but as soon as you get the first bill, you can make a full payment).
In that case, either the store or the bank is assuming that people who finance a $145 mattress are probably going to be good for a lot of interest and late fees.
The way I’ve heard it is that when you buy a new mattress and the company takes away your old one, it can eventually find its way to these less reputable people.
The people selling them strip off the old cover and sew on a cheap new one and sell your old worn out mattress as brand new.
When I Google it (the phone number) I get an address for a (perhaps for sale) small two-story office building in a nearby community. I also find a link to a Facebook website, Mattress castle . com, which took me to a domain-for-sale website.
I’m more curious about what appears to be some sort of business model that ties all these signs together across many cities and states.
I have bought one of the cheap sets, though it was a double for $49 … the box spring was the same thickness as any other box soring, but the mattress was about 3 inches thick.
My WAG would be that all that either the places are somehow owned by a bigger business or that the deals, prices, marketing etc are determined by the manufacturer or distributors.
At a storefront. They were a normal mattress store with all the usual name brands, including their own ‘house brand’ and it was a pillow top because the top half inch was in a separate slab covered in the same fabric and attached on top of the mattress like the ones that are 6 inches of mattress and 2 inches of pillow top. The sign was actually printed, you know like this type of sign.
We did take it, to the disappointment of the salesman, we wanted a cheap bed for the guest room to stage the place for sale [it just had to look good enough to sell the place]
Clever but that doesn’t explain the ubiquity of the similar signage. [Surely someone else has seen what I’m describing.] I believe the intention of the seller is to give the appearance of a situation whereas a new mattress set was purchased but is not needed for some reason and now the “desperate” seller needs to raise some quick cash. It’s bogus and deceitful but must be effective because I’ve seen these signs for years.
At least that’s the story I’ve created to explain it.
Mattress companies are a front for the mob so they can afford to offer discounts. Nobody needs enough mattresses to keep all the mattress stores profitable. In my town there are multiple places where there are three mattress stores within 200 yards of each other.
Now that we’re catching on, they’ve expanded into other businesses–dentist offices are springing up like weeds and so are car washes a la Breaking Bad.
Come on! Surely some Doper has seen these signs. And surely some Doper has called the number. And surely some doper is currently sleeping on a “new” queen-sized pillowtop mattress set that they purchased for $198!
There are literally thousands of typefaces designed to look handwritten, so it’s no problem to whip up a few hundred signs and stick them all over town. Around here it’s, “I will buy your home for cash.”
In my neck of the woods, it’s both-mattresses and ‘’fast cash for your house’. Has to be a racket one way or the other. Pyramid/MLM must be involved somehow.
“Fast cash for your house” is done by flippers, and the houses they purchase are usually in such bad shape, it’s cheaper to demolish the house and build a new one.
