Direct Buy of Colorado Springs

Description of Work: A "buying service" for deals on furniture, appliances, etc.

Description of Work: Their high pressure sales staff, in order to become a "member" want you to pay over 3500.00 to join their membership. Thanks, but no thanks.

Description of Work: BEWARE - if you get drawn in by the television adds promising a free 30 day membership, you will find out that their "Open House" will turn into a high-pressured sales pitch to get you to buy a full membership at a cost of $5500.00! You will be told that the 30 membership is limited to $1000 purchase (other restrictions apply as well), and if you don't join with a full membership TODAY, your membership will cost you an additional $1000 if you come back as much as one day later to join. They don't want to give you time to think about it before making the decision to join. We went to Direct Buy on the recommendation of friends who had purchased their Evergrain brand composite decking through the Direct Buy of Westminster, CO. We were specifically interested in joining Direct Buy in order to purchase this particular, or a comparable, brand of decking. After seeing a television ad stating Direct Buy had free 30 day memberships, we made an appointment to check out the store and availability of composite decking. We attended a Direct Buy Open House on a Sunday afternoon, with the intent of taking advantage of the advertised free 30 day membership. However, during the presentation, the membership salesman indicated that the free 30 day membership was limited to $1000 purchase limit and if we intended to buy the full membership there would be an additional $1000 charge if we joined any later than that day of the open house. (I believe this to be a bait-and-switch tactic) We found that the Colorado Springs Direct Buy did not carry the Evergrain brand decking, and since it was a Sunday, the Denver area stores were closed, so we were unable to verify if any of them carried the Evergrain. We were left to decide whether to wait until Monday to verify if one of the stores carried Evergrain, in which case a membership would cost us an additional $1000. The membership salesman assured us he believed that it was very likely that one of the Denver area stores carried that brand since our friends had just gotten theirs through Direct Buy a couple of years prior. If not, we were assured we would be able to get a comparable composite decking at a geatly reduced price compared to retail. We spent the next several weeks tracking down what composite decking all the different Colorado Direct Buy stores carried and their prices. As it turned out, none of the stores carries the Evergrain brand, and the brand available through the Colorado Springs Direct Buy costs significantly more than a comparable decking we were able to purchase at retail price, through our local Home Depot stores, which we did. In summary, the entire reason for us to join Direct Buy, in order to purchase materials for a major deck construction project, did not work out for us. We have not used the membership for this project and do not foresee using the membership in the future. Therefore, we requested through Mr. Britton that our membership be cancelled, financing for the membership be cancelled and our $800 down payment returned to us. One month after our request to cancel our membership and return our down-payment on the membership, Mr. Britton responded by e-mail that he would cancel our membership if we paid him $1200. This feels like extortion to me, since we have not used the membership and have gained nothing from the membership, and I know that others have received full refunds after having second thoughts after being pressured by the sales pitch: "you must join right now to avoid an extra $1000 cost for the membership".