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6/8/2008 - Guy writes:
I just saw this infomercial about Direct Buy and had to share. Many years ago before they even had infomercials, we got sucked into their scheme. My wife and I had been married a few years and money was tight. The tactic at that time was to mail you an invitation and offer you "free" items to get you to the showroom for their sales pitch. At the time a membership was $1000, but believe me that was a lot of money to us at the time. The claims of the amount of money you'll save are compelling, but they are not real. They use a high pressure sales tactics, and tell you that if you leave without joining right now you will not be able to join later. The reason they do that is that if you had the opportunity to verify their claims, you would realize that the prices they are using are the suggested retail prices, and you can almost always get the merchandise for less than the suggested retail price. We ended up purchasing a few items through them, but realized that by the time you added shipping and handling fees, you could almost always get the same price or better by just watching sales, or finding the right retailer that would give you a deal. They aren't doing anything illegal, since they do provide the service you purchased. However, the tactic of not letting you leave and think about joining should be a red flag about joining. They sold me something valuable, but not what they intended. They sold me a healthy dose of skepticism and the backbone to tell high pressure salespeople where to stick it. Just remember there is no free lunch, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

6/7/2008 - JB writes:
My wife and I attended the infamous "open house" in Costa Mesa, Ca. this past week. We were instructed to "get there early" so we came 5 minutes late. It was weird to say the least. We were ushered into the presentation room into the big overstuffed chairs. The video and the speaker were the standard fluff you see and hear with most fly by night companies. If you don't buy our membership you are either stupid or crazy. Everyone else is trying to screw you except us. Yada yada yada. They ALMOST had a good time share presentation going. I was waiting for the ballons and confetti! ANYWAY, there is no value here at all. Every question we asked was answered with a lot of smiling face chatter with no real substance. The sales guy was OK but even he did not believe in this crap. His attitude was if you pay me, GREAT, if you don't, "sorry you folks missed out on this". Even the "designers" that were supposedly "working on stuff" looked like they were bored to death cause they had to sit there until the end of the open house. One designer even made it clear that she will not design anything "for free". Her time was $65 an hour in store and $75 an hour at your house. When I repeated that back to the sales guy in the form of a question he wasn't sure that was correct. Another "designer" said that they charge $120 to come out and measure. WHAT ???? It seems like you get a job there to fleece the suckers that buy the membership. I mean, who can actually do a remodel without anyone coming to where the remodel is done ? I could go on but just read some more complaints following mine. RUN, DON'T WALK away from these guys. Yikes.

6/7/2008 - CINDY writes:
Has someone tried to turn Direct Buy into the Better Business Bur. ? This sounds like something that should happen thank you for saving my time. I was intrested in checking this company out, and know better now..

6/7/2008 - fuckyou writes:
What a totsl scam! Tell M. Savage and other radio host's you suck for lining your pockets. In short the Houston punk who told us to wait 7 years can spend 7 years kissing my A%%. I own two multi complexes in the museum district that I am remodeling. I am also remodeling in Honululu but will be sure to 'buy Japanese Be careful America because in my opinion these people are pure SH&T

6/7/2008 - Gelcys writes:
We learned about DirectBuy from the comercials, and their website is not much better. After going to an Open House last week, and discussions after leaving, we decided not to join. The fact that it's such a secret and you don't get all the info until you let them play out your game made me decide to post all that we found out during our experience there. I have nothing against our sales person in the Savannah office, but I do not like the overall program... and we do have a choice not to join, but I think they could be more upfront, so I may have arrived more prepared... not not have spent my time visiting them at all. We are doing a couple of remodel projects at our home with a tight budget and decided to check out what DirectBuy could save us. Hearing that we both had to come together, we were sure we'd get a sales pitch and pressure to join that night, but had no idea it was NECESSARY. We were happy we were going the night of an Open House, so we wouldn't be completely alone. It was scheduled for 7 (the sign on the door says they close at 8), a salesperson met us at the front and too us around and chatted until about 7:20, and then we had to sit through a presentation in which most of the time spent was to tell us how much we'd save and on what items we'd be most likely to save: UPTO 20% on appliances, electronics UPTO 30% - I can't remember what was at this level UPTO 50% on home furnishings and flooring. You still have to pay tax. You MAY still have to pay shipping from the manufacturer, and you MAY have to pay an 8% "handling fee" on items that the manufacturer does not want to ship to your house and only wants to ship to DirectBuy. They claim not to mark anything up, but what's that 8% really? AND... How do you know if it's at cost? My husband caught this, my head was swirling by the time they showed us a manufacturer's book where you pick your items from - at the front there's a multiplier - so you know how much under 100% your price is - so let's say .713 and it may also say if you have to add 8%, then you flip thorugh the book to your item and it shows MSRP, which you multiply by the multiplier to get your price... how do you really know what AT-COST is? Maybe they are still marking items up? I don't know. Finally they breezed over the fact that it would cost $5150 (my husband pointed out these numbers put together is was the police code for crazy person!) for the first 3 years, and thereafter if you want to renew it would cost $198. They said there were ways to finance that, but we didn't get that far. Then the video said that once they share their confidential pricing with us, if we decided to leave and not join, we were not welcomed back... so to please stay as long as it would take to make our decision that night. How do you know they'll stay in business long enough for you to recuperate that? They make ALL their profit to pay their employees from initial membership fees... really? Essentially - do you have $5000 in extra change to spare tonight? I don't. I have a tight budget and want to know what I will be saving - which means I have to find out what everything I want to buy will cost, and see tha thte savings was going to equal out to more than $5000... all tonight. I told our sales person my concern, and that I wanted to make an educated decision but I thought it would take hours, and at this point it was after 8 pm, and there was no way we'd have the time to figure this out that night. He asked if he could look at my prices and if he could compare anything for me at this time. I decided to share with him a big ticket item, which I didn't think he could beat. What Home Depot is good at, like Walmart, is getting one item in bulk for cheep. I on't think we will even be able to beat them with an online retailer for an instock item since htye have such buying power. If you need to special order, they are definitely not the least expensive - our faucets will be less from plumbing supply stores locally and online. So.. the item I wanted to share first was the Home Depot in stock American Standard Lifetime Whirlpool. The salesperson searched and could not find it. He said the designers had already left for the day and they would be able to locate it. I asked about the cabinets we were going to get - Mills Pride or another low end in stock type for a kitchenette - he said they only had high end cabinets... end of discussion for the night - if you can't show me the savings, I can't decide. He was great at this point - he asked that I email him a copy of the items I wanted to buy, and he'd research and price check them for me. That's what we should have heard before we even stepped in the door and spent as little time with the fluffy presentation stuff as possible. We went home and thought about it - the fixtures we're intending on buying would cost about 20k, if they could save us 30%, that would be $6000. Already we knew our kitchen appliances would only be UPTO 20%, and the kitchenette and master bathroom cabinets didn't have anything comparable in their store, AND some of the places I may be buying from are online which means I don't have to pay my 7% sales tax, and may offer free shipping... so it was going to be pretty unlikely we were going to truely be saving that large membership fee.... that was very intimidating - if it was $1000, it would be more easily attained. I called him in the morning and said it wasn't for us at this time - I didn't want to waste his time. He said to keep us in mind for the future. I said I thought we were banned, and he said, no we can come back in 7 years. I hear people say that if you're building a house you'll save a lot... I don't know about that. I think if we were just getting out of college and moving into our first house, with no furniture or window treatments - we may have made the membership up. The fact is, you need to already want to spend the money on high end furniture and name brand window treatments (they showed a dining room that could have cost 13k and through them it would have only been 6k - I furnished a living/dining room together for that much!). If you are normally frugal and shop around, and don't buy out of catalogs or impulse, I think you'll do fine on your own when you fugure in the menbership and their 8% handling, taxes, and possible shipping fees. I hope I've demistified the Open House for you - feel free to check them out, but arrive there WELL educated with what you're intending to spend on your items, AND if you can, talk to your salesperson before you go in and send him the items so he spends the time researching them before you step in the door. It's not for everyone, it wasn't for me, but I'm sure some people feel they get suckered in, and others really do save and do well there... no matter if there is a handling fee, or if the items aren't at cost, despite the huge membership fee.

6/7/2008 - ray writes:
wish we'd visted this site before we spent 3 valuable hours being part of a slick, polished pile of poop! actors in the audience, high pressure and hiding the fact that shipping costs and handling fees eat up most of the value. be smart and talk to people who already have it before you even go to the sales circus. then make a more informed decision which may likely be no!!

6/6/2008 - nathan writes:
direct buy is a private club, not a retail store. they are restricted to a certain process for admitting guests. just like a country club, there are certain rules and regulations for becoming a member. there is no reason to get angry if you do not want to follow the rules. just simply continue to shop retail. why is everyone so angry? if it isn't for you, move on.

6/6/2008 - Kyle writes:
We have only placed one order with DirectBuy in one years time and that was only because the manufacturer was offering free freight and free in-home delivery and for some reason, DirectBuy wasn't charging their 8% markup. So we actually saved some money on appliances for our new house. If I save about $4000 more, I'll break even. We have many examples of purchases we wanted to make through DirectBuy from furniture to light fixtures to electronics to home accessories to plumbing, but the freight and fees were so high, it was the same or cheaper to buy retail. DirectBuy sends out a quarterly catalog with 'special deals.' I went to order something this morning and the $19.99 item I wanted quickly turned into a nearly $40 item. The price nearly doubled after they added shipping, handling, and an unspecified 'FEE'. DirectBuy's claim to fame is "No Retail Markup, Ever" and then they charge fees for virtually everything you buy through them. When we were with our salesman, I asked him why DirectBuy charged a handling fee on nearly all orders placed. His response was (and my wife will confirm this) that all items that arrive at the DirectBuy warehouse are checked for damage by the staff and have to be stored until they are picked up and the fee is to cover those costs. But in truth, even items that are delivered to your door and never see the inside of DirectBuy's warehouse are subject to the handling fee. DirectBuy is a scam, plain and simple. A savvy shopper can do just as well or better on their own, and that's exactly what I tell family and friends who ask about it.

6/6/2008 - Brenda writes:
What a major disappointment on many levels. Luckily I did not join DB, and it was mostly because they let their own rules get in the way. I was contacted to set up the appointment and was told my husband needed to be there as well. When I indicated it was not necessary as I am the one that works, he stays home with the kids, and all the decisions and payments for our home addition are solely mine, they indicated it didn't matter...he still needed to be present. When I said the only way we could be there together is if our young children came as well. They said NO and I pushed back only to get the response...Well, are they well behaved because we can't have children that misbehave in our store. Our children are very well behaved. I went to the appointment on my own. They refused to see me stating that we both needed to be there. They agreed that if I was single they would have seen me but since I am married, if we both don't come then we will NEVER be members as it is their corporate policy. I said this feels like a hard core Time Share like sales pitch and the store manager became very defensive and said...what, are you trying to affend me? You are, you are trying to affend me. He got red in the face and started waking toward the door to get me out. I asked for his name and he would only give me his first name. I asked for his manager and he said to get the main HQ info from the web. When I left, they locked the store door...this is in the middle of the day. I immediately called the HQ and they said that each DB is Franchise owned and HQ makes recommendations on policy but it is ultimately up to the Franchise owner. I am just floored that a company won't let a profesional woman make a decision without her stayhome husband present. For that reason alone I will not consider them.

6/6/2008 - tatiana writes:
they are really bad and all they want is your money!!!!they took more then $4700.00 from me, and i want my money back and i will get it...

6/6/2008 - T writes:
I joined Direct Buy Syracuse NY after seeing it on a commerical and attending a high pressured sales pitch. I had plans to do a major home renovation. However, 3 days after joining and paying in full ($4200), my father suddenly passed leaving a financial burden behind for my family. After dealing with the loss of a parent, I had to get finances in order to take care of the bills my father left behind. I began calling DirectBuy with no luck. Finally, after several email attempts, I received an email from the owner saying basically that they also had bills to pay and would not refund my money, even though I never used the service. They claimed I had to tell them within 3 days of signing, however, they would reimburse me $350 because my dad died. How nice is that? Saying my dad is worth $350 and good luck. Also told me to think ahead to Xmas and buy some blenders and other items, I can save that way. Oh thanks! I got mad and wrote back asking for them to show compassion and that I actually wanted to stay a member but needed to liquidate my cash flow for now. I also asked why would they want me to tell people about my bad experience and cost them potential customers down the road? The owner later called and inmplied I had threatened them and the best they could do now was give me back half of the $4200 because they have costs. Funny, I spent 2 hours at their store one day, that was it, and it cost them $2200? Go figure! Supposedly I have a check coming my way, we'll see. Fool me once, shame on you. Though I can't bring my dad back, I sure can learn from this. They said I can come back once I get my dad's finances in order and pay them in full again. I said "thanks, you're the best." NOT! I'm usually pretty quiet, but when it involves my family, I don't forget. I have already told 23 people (yes, that's right I've started a running notebook tab) and this won't count how many read this blog and don't buy. Hopefully I've cost them $96,600 already (23 x $4200) and that is what I've done in the first week! I won't stop now forever. My goal is to achieve $1 million and show those heartless people in Syracuse that my dad was worth alot more than the original slap in my face of $350! Funny thing, most business owners who choose compassion over greed are the most successful, because customers reward owners for working with them. Again, watch out, apparently one visit to the store is worth $2200 for 2 hours, because that's what it is costing me! A few friends of mine are attorneys, they said I should write the BBB as well as well go public with a News 10 story, I don't know, all I really wanted was my money back after losing my dad. But no, $2200 for one store visit and NEVER buying a single product, and thats if they mail be my $2200 check, we'll see if they even have the heart to do that!!!!

6/5/2008 - Lea writes:
My husband and I built a house and we signed up with Direct Buy. When we went to the showing... we had a hunch that it was a pressure sale kind of thing where you had to make the decision on the spot. Normally we do not like things like this and we walk away, but we were still interested. The day we went we were the only other couple there at the appointment so the sales lady was all ours. She took us into the little room to view the video and we asked her to just skip it and get to the details. She was taken aback and very surprised at our approach so she changed her tune and just gave us the ending. After a thorough interrogation from my husband we were there for a while and in the end we decided to sign up. Poor girl, I kind of felt sorry for her, but she was a good sport about it. Do we regret it now? Not necessarily... so far we bought all our lighting for the house which would have been expensive if we had used the lighting stores even with their "builder's" discounts that you can ask for if you say you are building a house. We bought a luxury Jacuzzi tub and purchased the other tubs, as well as all the sinks, had access to the flooring wholesalers (we hired independent installers)... the list goes on. We are also did extensive comparison shopping through the internet. Do the shipping costs and handling fees add up to the same as the internet sales and retail sales? Sometimes, but it just depends on what you buy. I can certainly say that Direct Buy is not for the average consumer. You have to really ask yourself what are you going to get out of it? For a small remodel a few appliances... no way. Building a house, maybe. If you buy furniture, like us where we are starting out from scratch, then it's fine. I think we decided we would probably break even at some point. I’m not going to claim that we’ve saved thousands and thousands of dollars. I like that we have access to the higher end items. We’ve spent just as much money as on standard model items but got the higher end version. I do agree, however, with all the comments about the company's approach, that's it's so lucrative... I suppose if they posted the membership fee on the front door or their website then no one would come. As far as the service, we use the one in San Antonio and the gals there are very nice. I don't have any complaints on the service. The web site I also do not have any complaints about. I search the web site all the time with no problems. I just browse the merchants that they deal with and use model numbers to look something up on the site. Anyway, good luck to those considering the membership. Like I said, it’s not for everyone, just think about what you are doing and go prepared to evaluate whether you feel you will benefit from the membership or not.

6/4/2008 - Ed writes:
I believe Direct Buy used to be United Consumers club and changed their name after many complaints. I was forced to hire an attorney when the salesman's exaggerated savings were not available on several products. I feel any reputable company would offer a satisfaction money back guarantee and be glad to let you sleep on your decision.

6/4/2008 - Traci writes:
I first saw the television ads and thought it might be something to look in to since I was planning to remodel my kitchen. I didn't really think about it again until I got an advertisement pop-up. I signed up to receive a pass to come to the showroom. I envisioned this to be like Costco. I immediately received a phone call to schedule my appointment. I set it up for a Saturday afternoon, and thought it was a little odd that the guy kept asking if I was married, and then told me I couldn't bring anyone with me. In mentioning my upcoming visit to a friend, he immediately forwarded me the link to this website. I owe him big. I never realized it was a huge "timeshare-like" investment.

6/4/2008 - Chris writes:
You should never have to pay a store for your loyalty, why would anyone lock into shopping for all of their home produces at one store, it just doesn't make sense. Anyone who owns a home or has done any remodeling knows that just one store never has everything you want or need. Every reputable retailer has sales and other discounts. Any store that has a sales person will be more than familiar with the concepts of bargaining, competition, and price matching/beating. Don't be bullied into shelling out any money. Use your head, does DB really have anything to really offer you. If they did, they'd show you instead of dangling a "secret catalog that only you and a few select other will have access to" as bait. All of their suppliers do business with other retailers. All of those retailers have sales. There is no real cost savings. Only regret and a wallet lighter $5000.

6/4/2008 - Lisa writes:
DO NOT GET SUCKED IN!!! I used to work for this company years ago, and am astonished at how many people they’ve duped over the years. When you train there as a “sales rep”, you’re really nothing more than a glorified telemarketer with a script that you go over and over until you sound real saying it (you actually make calls with this script in front of you that has answers to ANYTHING people say to get out of making an appointment). We had appointment quotas we had to meet each week (you needed 20 solid leads to secure 1-2 appointments), and spent ALL of our time making solicitation calls and training to be better sales people (read: telemarketers). They strong-arm you into the appointment, and then give you a very smooth spiel that makes you feel like you’re blowing the chance of a lifetime if you don’t sign up that night. It’s just a high-pressure way to get you to buy a product that very few people are going to benefit from. If you have $50000.00 worth of purchases and don’t mind they shipping charges and picking up what you buy, it MIGHT be worth the initial cost. Oh, and all the comments about the poor customer service? There IS NO customer service department. How many people are giving them $5000 every week?? They don’t care if you buy a thing from them as long as new suckers keep coming along!!!

6/3/2008 - Cannot Believe Posts writes:
I cannot believe what I have read on this site. I'm glad I came upon it. When I went to the Direct Buy site, I was curious as to why there are NO telephone numbers listed with the addresses. After reading all of these complaints, I can only assume that it's because they want to avoid all of the angry customers who need to call them. Thank you for telling your stories!

6/3/2008 - Jeremy writes:
I will show you how you loose money on this product USING DIRECT BUYS PRESENTATION NUMBERS. I just sat through the two hour presentation (thank you wife). I understand the appeal of wholesale, but even if you are paying wholesale it doesn't add up...... Direct Buy states that the average retail profit margin is 24%-43%. This is pretty close in my line of work. Lets take the high number and work from there. Direct Buy says the 43% items tend to be furniture and large items. These types of items are also the exact type the manufacturer charges the 8% handling fee to ship (understandable because it is a pain). Now your 43% savings drops to 35%. Now lets consider the shipping cost. On a $4,000 retail living room set you will easily pay $200 in shipping charges. So back out another 5% in savings for a total of 30%. Ok, now you have saved 30%. Sounds great right? Now consider the power of cash. You can walk into any furniture store and get 20% off the retail price by holding a stack of $100 bills in your hand. All you have to do is ask a manager. If you function on cash like me then this is easy to see (and if you can't pay cash for the furniture you shouldn't buy it). Now my 30% savings is only 10% compared to what I paid at the retail store. That isn't bad but I would have to spend $50,000 to break even with the membership fee off $5,000. But wait....it gets even better. What could I have done with that $5,000 I just spent on a membership? Well, if you have any debt at all calculate the interest you would be paying on the $5,000 that could have been used to pay it down. If you have no debt at all stick the 5K in a run of the mill mutual fund and make 12% interest. Either way you have to consider the opportunity lost. Whew...that was a lot of math. The bottom line is if you only buy what you can afford and you pay cash then you are actually wasting money. Keep in mind that I actually used Direct Buys sales pitch numbers and even used the high end of their "savings".

6/3/2008 - Joanne writes:
We went to a Direct Buy presentation. Quite honestly, I had no idea that they would expect us to make a decision THAT night. I don't know about anyone else, but we don't make snap decisions to invest $5000.00 dollars in anything. I like to get information and think it over. I expected we would have a limited time to take them up on the offer, not having to make an instant decision. What really upsets me though is that NO ONE, not the person on the phone making the call to set up the appointment, none of mailing info we received from them, nothing let us know that we would have to make an immediate decision. We just made a pretty hefty financial committment earlier this month. If I had known we had to make an instant decision, with no second chances, I would have put off going there until I felt we were ready to do that. I also plan to complain about this to their corporate office.

6/3/2008 - Mike writes:
I wasn't sure what this company was, but while looking for a home entertainment system over the weekend, I stumbled upon them. I applyecd for their free pass. I got a call back tonight and heard the script read to me from the gal on the other end. I started to get those "time share" hairs on the back of my neck standing up. After making a harmless appointment I called them back and simply asked how much the annual membership would be? I got the yada yada answer so I rephrased my question to the representitive. Again I received a circular answer that got me no where. After reading the posts on this site I think I'll be happy to stick wih my 50 dollar annual Costco membership fee. What do you want to bet I'm going to get a lot of high pressure calls back when I cancel my appointment with them?

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