High pressure sales
Avoiding bad deals is an important part of maintaining your financial health. It’s shocking to hear from friends how they have been preyed upon by high pressure sales people that sell anything from time share condos to home furnishings. Fortunately, you can detect these sales creatures by the tactics they have in common:
1. Whatever they are selling sounds like a deal too good to be true. Time share condos are a classic example. These are apartments in beautiful resort locations that you own with other people — each person gets a time period each year in which they can use the apartment. Who wouldn’t want a place in Florida for a tiny fraction of the cost of buying a place outright? Problem is, you are locked into a particular resort or resorts as long as you own the condo and you’ll find that it’s nearly impossible to sell a time share.
2. High initial costs. For example, a wholesale buying club may charge thousands for a membership. This locks you in to whatever the club has to offer and you might find the overall cost for whatever you are buying is no better that what you would have paid outside of the club once you add in the membership fee. The membership fee makes you a captive consumer.
3. No time to decide after being given a long sales pitch. A very common technique is lure you in with food or drink, eat up your time with a long but friendly sales pitch, and then once you are exhausted, offer you a take it or leave it deal. The sales person will say that if you don’t take today’s price you’ll never get it again, or may even say that you can never come back. If this ever happens to you, get out and get out fast! Tomorrow they’ll be offering a different bunch of people the same deal at the same price so why can’t they keep the offer open to you? The only point is to pressure you into signing a contract.
