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How not to sell me on your product
Jul. 21st, 2009 01:37 pmYesterday an HRV salesperson came to my door. Since I already have my eye on one of these as the next significant house-related purpose I decided to let him in and find out what the current price would be. He must have thought he had me then, when I said I was already planning on buying one in the future.
He checked the number of rooms etc, and cheerfully announced that the normal price would be $3600 (which has dropped, good) but today he could make it ~$3300 or if I wanted to take advantage of their finance (cue calculator) .. $31 a week over 36 months. Would that really impact on my standard of living at all?
- He kept trying to push this point, even after I had made it clear that yes, I considered this a significant amount of money at the current time. It annoys me, much like the charity collectors trying to sign me up for long term schemes with lines like "It's only one less cup of coffee or a Red Bull a week" - I'm sorry, I already do not have those sort of frivolities in my budget. I should not have to tell you this more than once.
I asked about the interest rate. 19% he said airly. I looked at him like he was crazy. I can put it on the mortgage for less than that - I could probably put it on the credit card for less than or about that (if my limit was high enough).
Thank you for the up to date information I said. No I won't be buying one today I said. I don't actually care about the few hundred $ off I said. My mortgage is low enough that no, I'm not actually compounding the interest over 20-30 years going that way I said. 10 minutes later I finally managed to stop him repeating arguments I'd already rebuffed and get rid of him.
It wasn't until a bit later that I had thought to run the mental calculation on what $31 over 3 years actually came to, which I should have done immediately given that he cut and ran when I started saying "I have better use for that oh, $120 a month".
$31 * 52 * 3 = $4836. (Note this is not the same as $31 * 4 * 36 by about $400 - there are not always 4 weeks in a month) Why would I take your payment plan for ostensibly ~$3300 when it's going to cost me a third again the full cost of the system in the long run? In 3 years (probably less) I can save that $3600 full cost and pay outright, effectively not having to pay $1200 in the process.
What really floors me (again) is the knowledge that people fall for this. Sure, sometimes it's worth paying a bit extra for the ability to drip feed payments at something and have it now, but you should always know how much that bit extra is and be able to decide if it's worth it for you. This guy did his absolute best to obfuscate that, and it's obvious why.
I'm not going to hold this particular salesperson's dishonest tactics against HRV - he's just a rude commission-paid street-greasing slug and the initial guy a few years ago wasn't. I'm still convinced of the value of their ventilation system and I'll still buy one - on my terms.
He checked the number of rooms etc, and cheerfully announced that the normal price would be $3600 (which has dropped, good) but today he could make it ~$3300 or if I wanted to take advantage of their finance (cue calculator) .. $31 a week over 36 months. Would that really impact on my standard of living at all?
- He kept trying to push this point, even after I had made it clear that yes, I considered this a significant amount of money at the current time. It annoys me, much like the charity collectors trying to sign me up for long term schemes with lines like "It's only one less cup of coffee or a Red Bull a week" - I'm sorry, I already do not have those sort of frivolities in my budget. I should not have to tell you this more than once.
I asked about the interest rate. 19% he said airly. I looked at him like he was crazy. I can put it on the mortgage for less than that - I could probably put it on the credit card for less than or about that (if my limit was high enough).
Thank you for the up to date information I said. No I won't be buying one today I said. I don't actually care about the few hundred $ off I said. My mortgage is low enough that no, I'm not actually compounding the interest over 20-30 years going that way I said. 10 minutes later I finally managed to stop him repeating arguments I'd already rebuffed and get rid of him.
It wasn't until a bit later that I had thought to run the mental calculation on what $31 over 3 years actually came to, which I should have done immediately given that he cut and ran when I started saying "I have better use for that oh, $120 a month".
$31 * 52 * 3 = $4836. (Note this is not the same as $31 * 4 * 36 by about $400 - there are not always 4 weeks in a month) Why would I take your payment plan for ostensibly ~$3300 when it's going to cost me a third again the full cost of the system in the long run? In 3 years (probably less) I can save that $3600 full cost and pay outright, effectively not having to pay $1200 in the process.
What really floors me (again) is the knowledge that people fall for this. Sure, sometimes it's worth paying a bit extra for the ability to drip feed payments at something and have it now, but you should always know how much that bit extra is and be able to decide if it's worth it for you. This guy did his absolute best to obfuscate that, and it's obvious why.
I'm not going to hold this particular salesperson's dishonest tactics against HRV - he's just a rude commission-paid street-greasing slug and the initial guy a few years ago wasn't. I'm still convinced of the value of their ventilation system and I'll still buy one - on my terms.
