My house would be considered “pretty decent” in a third world country. Let’s just say it’s a fixer upper. The roof is shot.
A door-to-door salesman for Erie Construction Mid-West (who was mysteriously dressed very much like a utility company worker) offered a free estimate for a roof replacement I said, “Why not?”. We scheduled a time.
The catch – and this is a big catch that I later learned – is that they would only provide the estimate if both my wife and I were present for the estimate. That’s a hair odd, I thought. To estimate a roofing job, you really only need to know the roof stuff. How big is the roof? Any weird angles? etc. The reason they require a husband and wife to be there is interesting. Keep reading.
I knew there would be a sales pitch at the end of the estimate. That’s a given. What I didn’t forsee was that this salesman had yellow eyes and a red light saber. To be fair, he was a very nice young man. He was also a full-blown Jedi at the sales thing. He also had an agenda that wasn’t in line with ours. (This explains the yellow eyes.) He completely overwhelmed me with his mastery of the art of psychology. I repeat. He completely blew my mind at how skilled he was at getting what he wanted from me. It’s my fault. I should have realized the absolutely astounding prowess he possessed at the art of mental mastery and made concessions for it. I was so drunk in the ways of the salesman that I made BAD decisions.
I made decisions that made me nearly throw up the next morning. Seriously.
My wife fell into the trance, too. That’s why they demand that both of you hear the sales pitch. They want her drunk, too. If my wife would not have been there, she’d throw a fit at how much money I had agreed to spend on the roof. She would have lost her mind. I would have tried to sell her on it the same way the salesman sold me. …..But I’m no Jedi. I’m barely a peasant. My sales skills wouldn’t have worked and the deal would have been off.
In short, they want both husband and wife there because they are confident that their salesman are so elite that they will put both of you into a trance. By “trance” I mean they will convince you to buy a product vastly exceeds your needs and budget. You’ll wake up and kick yourself.
I’m a big proponent of personal responsibility, personal accountability, etc. I also don’t drive drunk. This situation is 100% my fault. I should have been prepared. I should have slept on it. I would have (and did) realize that this roof was way out of our price range, despite it’s possible high quality.
How To Cancel
When contacting the salesman via email, I received no response.
Using their chat on their website, I was told I couldn’t cancel an order online. Funny. It’s 2019. There is only one, good reason you can’t cancel an order online. They want to make life inconvenient.
I wasted 20 minutes reading the contract and found that I could send them a telegram – a cutting edge technology along with the steam engine. Apparenlty, it’s common in lawyer land to cancel contracts with a telegram because telegrams have a timestamp. So do emails. Again, that would be convenient. $71 later, I sent my telegram which SHOULD make it to their establishment by midnight on Monday. Today is Saturday. I’m cutting it close.
Conclusion
I had no idea salesman where this good. He convinced my wife and
We need a new roof. We don’t need a high end roof.
I wiill never work with a company that demands both parties attend a sales pitch. Someone needs to be sober enough to drive home.
Brandon