The bride and I downsized to a patio home about a year ago with the hope this home will take us to and through our golden years. Since we're now fully settled in, we've been looking at doing some home improvement/upgrade projects, one of which is to do a coating on our garage floor.

Last weekend, we went off to the Cincinnati Home and Garden show to get some ideas and speak with some vendors/contractors. We spoke to several floor coating companies, including Gorilla Garage. I know they can't give an accurate estimate of cost, but I asked all of them a cost range per square foot. Only a couple would give us any idea, which was $3 to $7.50 sq ft.

The lady at the Gorilla Garage booth was very nice, but of course, she could not answer any specific questions. She told us a rep could come out to give us a "no obligation" quote which would be good for a whole year. She also gave us a scratch off card that contained a discount, up to a completely free install. During the week, someone from the company called and set up an appointment for someone to come out Saturday for the "no obligation" quote, which would be good for a whole 12 months. I found it odd that they asked about whether my wife would be home and then reiterated that we both needed to be home for the appointment.

Saturday comes,and the salesman stops by for his "no obligation" quote. He's an older guy, seems nice enough, but does a lot of salesman schmooz. He takes a few measurements, looks at the surface of the floor, and asks a few questions about where we want the coating to go, etc. We go inside, and he goes into the product info, installation process, why they are better than their competitors, etc. Then comes the big question, how much is this going to cost us? He writes some really big numbers on the paper, and asks if we want to pay retail or get the "friends and family" price. I had to think really long and hard about that one but finally decide that the lower price would be better. So he gives us a discount for coming by their booth at the home show, and even though he "usually doesn't do it" he added on a coupon from the local super saver magazine. Oh, you have a scratch off? Let's see how much that is, you might even get the free install! Interestingly, the scratch off didn't have a dollar amount, but a discount code that he had to call in. Wow, we got the $750 discount, which hardly ever happens. After all these discounts, the final price was at the high end of the price range we were told by other contractors. At this point, the games have taken their toll on my patience. I finally have a firm price I can think about and compare to other vendors, so I'm ready for him to go.

Now he whips out a contract and says we need to get this signed so we can get on the schedule. I explained that I appreciate his time and need to compare his price with others' since his price is good for a year. Oh, well the first number is the only one good for a full year. The super duper low low friendly price is only good while he was there, so let's go ahead and do the deal so we can get a great product at a great price, yada, yada, yada. He went into full court press mode, and I was just about to toss him out of the house. Fortunately, another contractor who was giving us a quote to screen in our back porch came. Mr Gorilla Garage sales guy finally got the idea. He grabbed up his samples, product info, unsigned contract,and even his "no obligation" quote, and stormed off.

The Gorilla Garage product has a great reputation and should sell itself. However, the high pressure sales b.s. sure put me off on the company. I guess the sales guy is pretty successful, since he was driving a new Lexus, but he sure screwed the pooch with this potential customer.

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Originally posted by tk13:
However, the high pressure sales b.s. sure put me off on the company.

Yep.

Anytime a salesman says "This offer is only good right now!", with no opportunity to think or compare, the answer is always NO.

I hate that crap. The old ‘right now only price’ tells me it has been greatly inflated. Glad you were able to get away from this clown unscathed.

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I found it odd that they asked about whether my wife would be home and then reiterated that we both needed to be home for the appointment

YUP. First red flag, thanks but no thanks. I'm out on the spot.


Typical home improvement sales tactics. You should see what my elderly Aunt and Uncle paid for some of those leaf proof gutters a few years ago. It's criminal... especially since they have no trees in their yard. . I only discovered it when closing their estate.

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Originally posted by cparktd:

YUP. First red flag, thanks but no thanks. I'm out on the spot.

Typical home improvement sales tactics.

Yeah, bells and whistles were going off in my mind over it, but I actually had never encountered it before. Never again, though.

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they asked about whether my wife would be home and then reiterated that we both needed to be home for the appointment.

"My wife? Yeah, she was planning to be here, but she got called out. She's a supervisor in the consumer fraud investigation division. Seems that there have been a lot of complaints recently about a home improvement scam.

"Now where were we... oh yeah, you were just about to give me a quote."

Similar experiece with a large, national flooring company that my wife called when we first got into our current home. Same drill, low price only good for today and high pressure. We threw him out, literally...my wife took his carpet sample binder and tossed it out the fromt door when he wouldnt stop and I layghed and said you best go!

I feel this tactic must be being taught as a successful ploy as I've encountered it a few times lately.

Mr. Roof, tried pulling it, Empire Flooring is the same way, and most recently Champion Sunrooms.

Of course I didn't go with any of them after their tactics and summarily overpriced products.

I actually tried talking to the Champion sales guy about the tactic and why they do it, and if it's really successful and got nowhere. He acted like I was crazy to call it a sales ploy.

quote:

Originally posted by tk13:
I found it odd that they asked about whether my wife would be home and then reiterated that we both needed to be home for the appointment.

I would have told them to pound sand.
I probably wouldn't have been that polite, in fact.

Every time I hear the “only good today” bit I just tell them to fuck off.

quote:

Originally posted by tk13:
I found it odd that they asked about whether my wife would be home and then reiterated that we both needed to be home for the appointment.

It takes away the ploy of "This sounds really great but I'll have to wait until my spouse comes home and we can both decide and let you know."

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Originally posted by Kevmo:
Similar experiece with a large, national flooring company that my wife called when we first got into our current home. Same drill, low price only good for today and high pressure. We threw him out, literally...my wife took his carpet sample binder and tossed it out the fromt door when he wouldnt stop and I layghed and said you best go!

Five eight eight, two three hundred...

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...just tell them to fuck off.

Sound advice.

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Originally posted by Pale Horse:

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:
Similar experiece with a large, national flooring company that my wife called when we first got into our current home. Same drill, low price only good for today and high pressure. We threw him out, literally...my wife took his carpet sample binder and tossed it out the fromt door when he wouldnt stop and I layghed and said you best go!

Five eight eight, two three hundred...

That would be the one and they are horrible

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:
Similar experiece with a large, national flooring company...

Five eight eight, two three hundred...

That would be the one and they are horrible

Yeah I’m aware. Unfortunately my wife wasn’t as smart as yours. She probably knew that I would not buy their bullshit so she scheduled the visit while I was out of town and didn’t tell me until after the guy had already given her the quote. When I said that it sounded high and that I wanted to get another quote she said it was only good for that day. I told her that not only was it a scam but that there was no way they could do the entire downstairs in wood in one day. She didn’t believe me, told me that the guy worked for a flooring company so knew more than I did, and went ahead and put a deposit down.

The next day the guys showed up and laughed when she said it was supposed to be done in a day. They said it would take three. Then they ripped up the floors we had but turns out they brought the wrong wood type so they would have to come back in a week or so when they could get it.

I made it home before then though and aggressively cancelled the wood flooring. The upstairs carpeting had already been done so I was SOL there. I ended up getting the downstairs down with better product for about half the price.

A few years later the carpet upstairs starting getting loose and me and my wife are getting a divorce. Not because of the floors specifically but because of her attitude that lead to them.

I was in a local flooring store, inquiring about a specific type of carpet. Initially talking with the guy working the shop floor. Guy behind the desk tells him, "I got this". And does his computer lookup, quotes me an outrageous price. I told him the price was way too high. He says, if you order it today, I can get it half price. I asked him if he used to be a used car salesman and walked out the door.

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by tk13:
However, the high pressure sales b.s. sure put me off on the company.

Yep.

Anytime a salesman says "This offer is only good right now!", with no opportunity to think or compare, the answer is always NO.

These are my sentiments. But what I did to one of them who was ultra obnoxious, was I put a line through his price and hand wrote in a price that was 50% lower and pushed the sheet of paper back to him and said "this offer is only good for the next 5 minutes, so either accept it or leave." The guy didn't know what to do and left....LOL

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
I put a line through his price and hand wrote in a price that was 50% lower and pushed the sheet of paper back to him and said "this offer is only good for the next 5 minutes, so either accept it or leave."

Classic

Same thing with a certain big box store and their roofing contractors.

Big box store guy came out and pronounced the roof only needed a second layer despite one plywood sheet had buckled up. This is without going up top, from the ground only.

Started a flippant dismissal of my wife (wrong thing to do) when she asked a question and then when she got pissed and left the room he tried to be my pal. Second wrong thing to do. And a few other things all I wanted was for him to GTFO and made it pretty clear he was a no way Jose.

Basically told him that his estimate was way out of line and we needed a tear off (step-brother also looked at it before the two other contractors looked at it all three agreed tear off only, he was a licensed contractor as well as an LEO involved in construction) to which he said "Who you gonna believe?" Obviously not him.

So as a last ditch effort he says "Sign this and save me from having to come back out here" to which I replied "Don't think you're going to have to worry about that"........