We had a strange experience this week with a double-glazing company called Weatherseal. I took a telephone call from one of their sales people, which suggested that the company were looking for a showhome in my postcode. They were looking for a property to take 'before' and 'after' photos of, to demonstrate how their products could revitalise a house. In exchange for using the house in their advertising, they would do the whole job completely free. This sounded too good to be true, so I checked with the telephone sales-person, asking one specific question: "Do you get told if your home has been selected for the promotion before you agree to the installation or not?" The answer I was given was that, someone would call round, assess the property for its advertising potential, and if it was the most suitable one in the area, authorise free installation, and that this would all be agreed without paying a penny.
It sounded too good to be true because of course it was.
On the evening the person was supposed to call, he appeared two hours later than agreed. He understood that he couldn't go into measure windows in the kids bedrooms while they were being put to bed and that the measuring couldn't proceed. His boss on the phone thought otherwise, and put us under pressure to 'wait until they were sleeping' and then go in and begin. It's the school holidays, and they weren't even going to bed until nine-ish! Clearly these salesmen are being driven, and are under inordinate pressure from HQ.
The following night the assessor re-appeared. Bright, friendly, articulate and only 15 minutes late, he came - not to assess the property for its advertising potential taking "about an hour" of our time as promised; but to subject us to over two hours of intensely high-pressure selling. The experience was almost surreal.
The salesman was obviously highly trained, and engaged us in this ludicrous piece of theatre, involving a spurious company history lesson designed to build trust; a guide to the market designed to discredit the competition; mysterious rituals with meaningless (but important-sounding) code numbers to make the potential customer feel like a lucky winner; asking us to sign pointless pieces of paper saying we had understood the presentation, so to get us warmed-up for signing a real-contract. The pressure to take up their credit-plan was extremely strong too - and at times highly misleading. While the salesman was keen to suggest that a huge discount would be applied to the bill just for taking up the credit-plan, and to talk about the potentially low monthly repayment figures, he was far from forthcoming about the total-repayment sum should you use the full ten-years to repay! Likewise his figures for interest did not relate to the amount it would actually cost us for the job he had just measured up for - but simply interest 'per thousand pounds borrowed'. Likewise we were never told whether the interest rates were fixed, or flexible! This was rushed through at enormous speed, followed with the invitation we (unwisely) took, to sign to say we were happy with the presentation. The truth was, we were still digesting it, when the pen and the form were pressed into our hands.
All this comes to the inevitable climax of the sky-high bonkers price, which you get to chew on for a few minutes while he rehearses for the umpteenth-time the benefits of the Argon-filled glass-units and multi-point locking system.... Then comes the call from HQ with the 'good news' about the code number which slashes thousands off the price..... all so predictable. Yet - even as we were wise to what was happening, we felt the huge psychological pressures being brought to bear on us.
When we repeated, and repeated, and repeated that under no circumstances would we be signing a contract as big as this on the night - the salesman refused to accept this answer. He questioned, asked all manner of intrusive questions which we had to repeatedly refuse to answer, questioned again, kept offering to wait outside in the car until we had talked it though. Embarrassingly he just would not let go, despite us asking for the space to cook our tea and deal with the kids! The pressure to sign was then upped with the usual line about these deals only being on offer tonight, and that if we didn't sign now he wouldn't be able to give us the amazing deal we had just seen. When we explained that we would never sign a deal this big on the spur of the moment, he phoned his boss - who then tried to (very assertively) run through the presentation with me again on the phone! Can you imagine?!
I got the impression that the salesman himself was a decent guy, being driven by an unbelievably ruthless company, to operate in a way which stretched the definitions of reasonable, ethical practice to its tolerances! Whether any of it was actually illegal or not, I do not know.
Thankfully we are not weak, vulnerable, elderly or unable to withstand this kind of bombardment - and eventually he left. I had the chance to Google this company and see if this kind of thing goes on regularly - and indeed it does. I also discovered that they are a repeat offender in violating the rules on tele-marketing and in fact should not have been calling me at all!
Their windows look quite good. They seemed strong, warm, secure, and looked fine. The question is this: would I want to do business with a company that (i) violated my TPS registration and illegally cold-called me, (ii) tricked their way into my home under false pretences, (iii) outstayed their welcome by taking double the promised time, (iv) put us under undue psychological pressure, (v) tried to get us to sign up to a credit-scheme without adequate time to consider its terms in detail or compare it with other products, (vi) placed us under pressure to hastily conclude a deal with them for the windows without allowing us time to weigh our options (vii) subjected us to highly-polished theatre and ritual all designed to psychologically manipulate us towards parting with cash? Er,....
I see that consumer discussion boards are deeply divided about this company. Some people report terrible experiences - others will not have a word said against them. I am in no position to generalise about the company, I simply relate my experience. Let the reader decide!
8 comments:
had exactly the same problem today had to order the salesman out of the house he also called me a liar his parting words were f--- you I know nothing about this company only that I willnever deal with them
had exactly the same problem today had to order the salesman out of the house he also called me a liar his parting words were f--- you I know nothing about this company only that I willnever deal with them
I always try and get at least two quotes and fatefully asked to get a quote from Weatherseal. When the sales pitch started I inwardly groaned and called a halt to proceedings 5 mins in after he told me the 10 point locking feature THREE times in that time!
I said I was spending no more than £6-700 for 3 small windows and he had a fit lol A unethical company who will rip off the vulnerable by using an agressive and lofty attitude that would give a Kirby salesman a run for his money haha. REMEMBER YOU ARE THE BUYER AND THE BOSS
Had the same sales call and when I questioned the transparency of their sales process and the fact that it was a "cash refund" that was not mentioned in the initial call the sales person was very defensive and eventually hung up on me after informing me that the sales technique is successful for them. I found the call misleading and feel a number of vulnerable people may be caught out by their sales process.
They called me on my mobile number from a call centre in South Africa, telling me the usual one about looking for showhomes in the area, blah blah blah.
Shady practices included:
- Phoning me on my mobile, and revealing that they know my postcode. I have given NOBODY permission to share that information, so they are shamelessly using a dodgy database
- Asking if they could call me back on a land line (presumably because this would allow them to say I had opted in to calls from them, and thus get round my TPS registration
- When I asked at the start of the call if it was a sales call, the agent said absolutely not. When challenged later, he claimed it wasn't a sales call, they were just asking if I wanted to replace my windows. This is the flimsiest attempt to pass off a sales call as market research that I have ever seen
- The agent said he was in South Africa, where I understand Weatherseal do have call centres, but the number that came up on my mobile was an 0161 (Manchester) number. When called back this number goes straight to unobtainable, so it is to all intents and purposes bogus.
Weatherseal operate a freephone number 0800 041041. It is free to call from a land line, so if you have a spare moment and wish to waste some of their time and money, why not give them a call?
im based in dumbarton and have just received a call from weatherseal stating that 12 people in this area are being chosen for free windows and door replacement i told the girl that i was recording our conversation which i am legally entitled to do as long as i let the person know i thinsomething should be done against the way in which these companies conduct their sales
had the same problem ourselves salesman turned up around 6pm, we had been told the same story about appearing in a magazine, he then told us it would cost £7000 to fit all of the windows,in small print and on finance the windows would be £14,000!!at this point we refused to go any further, the salesman then lit up a cigarette my husband told him to leave right away, over the next few days we received numerous amounts of calls until we threatened to report them.
Loved your blog.
Shame I only came across it 15 mins before the Weatherseal rep turned up. As the presentation unfolded, it was like they had used your blog as the script...
While the bits about the product seemed to tell me it was a quality product, the majority of the pitch was around finding me the right price, not the right product.
I felt sorry for the sales girl - luckily not a bloke, as I had visions of having to go upstairs to my "burglars welcoming kit", pulling out the bat, and huckling them physically off the premises...
So, moral of the story is... don't deal with Weatherseal.
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