Attempting to turn the tables on some of life's parasites

"Pssssttt wanna buy a window?"
Mrs B and I had the week off - due to an end of year "use it or lose it" holiday policy for both our firms. As we intend to go skiing at New Year we decided to use this week to do housie things. "Whoo hoo." I shout unconvincingly.

In order to keep myself entertained, I decided it was revenge time for us poor householders and I took the opportunity to get my own back by cold calling some Double Glazing companies. (We do actually need replacement Double Glazing, as the cost off getting our current wooden window frames painted is not far off putting in maintenance-free replacements and in truth our windows are about as secure as an Icelandic bank. Add to this that our so called Double Glazed windows are giving out more drafts then a colander (unlike trying to get an overdraft out of a high street bank at the moment ....). I may have got a little bit carried away, however. After the dust had settled and I checked the appointments calendar I found that I had managed to squeeze 6 appointments into 3 days.

Don't tell me I don't know how to put together a holiday entertainment package...

No,no I really mean it....Mrs B was not particularly impressed, I can tell you....

The first appointment
He came in and told us that every other Double Glazing salesman was a crook and a charlatan. A great start which made us trust him about as much as a snake oil salesman. During the 3 hours of torture that he put us through he did leave us with these gems:

"Yes you can have cream it will look terrific" Followed about an hour later by - "No we don't do cream, it would look awful."

"You won't be able to force open our windows. See this arm?" - He the proceeded to bang his right fore-arm gently against our granite work top. "It has a titanium plate in it. I doubt with even this strength I would be able to open it." Wow, that demo convinced us.

"After a visit from one of my competitors one customer immediately offered me the contract for the whole house before I had even quoted a price." Umm, they sounded like sensible people.....I don't know how we resisted the temptation to just hand over a blank cheque then and there.....

"Now I have educated you about double glazing, any other salesman will know that I have been here." He didn't add "And they will tremble and be rendered powerless with that knowledge." But we had the feeling that that was what he was implying.....

All in all I doubt we would have purchased his windows if he had offered them for free. There would no doubt have been some catch or other....

Within minutes of his departure I had cancelled 3 of the remaining 5 appointments. This was for safety reasons - if Mrs B did not kill me, then a few more of these sessions and I would have ended up strangling myself...

Number two was an improvement and probably would have been the front runner except when we did some background information on some of his advice we realised we would have broken a number of housing regulations. Not just some petty ones mind you but ones that would have made the house unsellable. When he phoned to check why we had not snapped his hand off for his products I pointed out these deficiencies.

Salesman No.2 - "That's OK our surveyor picks up all that"

Me - "You mean the Surveyor who comes around after we have put down a non refundable 20%?"

Salesman No.2 - "Yes"

Me - "So when he comes back and tells us the price has gone up 50% in order to comply, do we get our non refundable deposit back!

Salesman No.2 - "Nooooo"

Me - "Do you really think you have got the account?"

Salesman No.2 - silence ......Click Click Buzzzzzz

Wow, you have got to love those salesmen.

Salesman number three just had to turn up, give us a decent price and some honest advice - He turned up, gave us some decent advice (the Internet is a god send) and the price........

and the price was.....

well, we are still waiting for that.

Is he playing hard to get or what? It feels like we have found ourselves on "Deal or no Deal". Foolishly I thought by doing the cold calling it would put us firmly in control. So, in the meantime we soldier on with our Z rated windows......Please note no parrots were hurt during the creation of this BlackLOG, although a couple of salesmen had their feeling hurt when we failed to fall for their patter...

Is it just me or do salesmen these days just seem to follow
a script and spout out their sales patter parrot fashion.

Mrs B taking lessons on how to deal with 'DG'
Salesmen. At least I think it's for the salesman....
Hang on a second that was me holding the camera...

Don't forget to drop into the "BlackLOG - Historical".