The salesman makes his pitch

Kirby vacuums are sold door to door because no one in their right mind will go to a store and pay $2100 for a vacuum/shampooer. A door-to-door salesman will promise anything just to get his foot in the door, and once he is there, good luck getting rid of him. Most people want to be nice and listen, but if you let him in the door, you are in for a three-hour presentation. If you try to be polite and listen, you will then feel obligated to buy the system. The door-to-door salesman knows this and will take advantage of it.

If you hesitate, he will begin offering discounts on the machine. Do you have an older vacuum you'd like to turn over to the salesman so they can donate it to charity? They will offer to take $100 off of your purchase. Do you have a shampooer? Another $100 off.

Now the Kirby will run you $2000. Consider this: you can get a top of the line vacuum, like a Dyson and a good shampooer for about $1000. Unless you have stacks of cash lying around the house, I would recommend the Dyson.

When I came to my senses I attempted to stop the sale. The law requires them to honor your request but it must be made within three days. Do you trust the post office to get your request to the distributor before the three days are up? I don't.

In my case, I contacted Kirby customer service, which only allowed a message to be left on a machine. By the time they called me back and told me how to contact the distributor it was past the three day period. When I refused to pay $2000 for the machine, the distributor sued me in small claims court. The judgment has yet to be returned, but the judge indicated he would follow the contract, of which I did not have a copy. If you sign a contract, the contract indicates you have a copy of it so you will be held responsible for it.

Does the Kirby do a good job vacuuming? Yes, it does have a powerful motor, however the rest of the machine is plastic. Don't tell me a bunch of formed plastic and a powerful motor make up a $2200 vacuum. You can do a google search for people's experiences with the Kirby and you will find a good representation of what you will find...

Furthermore, the shampoo part of the machine is very inconvenient to operate. In fact, it's a big pain in the neck, a major production to get the shampooer together.

The distributor offered to take $1000 for the machine but I decided to take my chances in court. This means that even with $1000 for the Kirby, they were still making a healthy profit. So what kind of profit are they making with $2200? Exorbitant! Again, if you have wads of cash laying around, go ahead and get the Kirby.