I received a phone call asking if I would like to have my carpets shampooed free of charge in exchange for telling my friends about this "carpet cleaning company." I decided to take a chance. Why not? When they arrived to "clean the carpets" as they had confirmed with a second phone call, it was a young man with a Kirby vacuum. I asked about the carpets, and he said, "Is that what they told you? " and he blamed an advertising agent.
We allowed him to demonstrate the vacuum anyway. It seemed to be a good product. At no point was it suggested that we would get anything less than a brand new vacuum if we bought. We said the price was too high and we were not interested. I told him we wanted to think it over for a few days. He stated that he would only be in our city that day and that Kirby vacuums could not be bought in stores or on line or shipped, but only directly from the salesperson; "company rules."
I do not normally frequent vacuum shops and did not check to see if this was true. He made several phone calls and bargained the price down. Against my better judgement, we bought the item anyway, as it certainly did seem to clean well. The salesperson made a couple of trips out to his van and brought in the box for the vacuum, etc. I am certain he claimed the vaccum he demonstrated with was fresh out of the box and had not been used previously at other locations.
We were away much of the time for the next few weeks and did not really use the vacuum until Dec. I noticed the first time I used one of the brush attachments that the rubber holding the bristles in place kept popping off. We were told how we could use the vacuum on our hardwood floor. The first sweep across left a scratch. (Upon checking we found the underneath is pitted and rough, and there is a hard build up of something.)
When we vacuumed a rug it left a long black streak. Same thing a second time. The belt had come off and dragging underneath, causing the streak. I phoned the manager of RTS Investments whose letterhead was on the invoice. He suggested that we had chosen to buy a demo to get a cheaper price. Not so. He asked why we were complaining after we had used it 3 months. I tried to explain that we were in the process of packing/moving, just used the old one, and had been away much of the first two months.
I asked for my money back and to return the machine, and he said that was impossible. Finally he asked me to write it all down, fax it to him with the serial number so he could check if it was a demo or not. No promise of any kind. I searched the net for this company and found other complaints. This is too expensive an item to let it go.
I will be very surprised if I get a reply, especially a positive one.
Furious
Terrace, British Columbia
Canada
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