This afternoon we got a knock on our door. Once again, a person was at our door trying to sell Kirby Vacuum cleaners. If you don’t know about Kirby Vacuums that is because they are not sold in stores, instead they are sold by sales people going “door to door.”

I do not like people coming to my door at the best of times trying to sell me stuff, but it does seem that the Kirby sales people seem to turn up in this area every six months trying to sell their ridiculously expensive vacuum cleaners. The first time it happened was about eighteen months ago when someone came to my door asking me if I wanted an “opinion” on a consumer product. He was pretty pushy and I ended up letting him in. He then spent the next TWO HOURS demonstrating a Kirby Vacuum cleaner to us. By the end, I had to almost push him out the door as I had an appointment at the Orthodontist that I did not want to miss.

After this experience, I googled Kirby Vacuums and their sales techniques and discovered a ton of complaints about Kirby both from people who had to put up with the demonstration and also from former salespeople. I actually felt sorry for some of the former salespeople. Many of them were just regular people who needed a job to pay the bills and support their families and were/are getting duped by Kirby. If you want to find out more about how Kirby scams customers and salespeople you can do a google search for yourself and find out.

So, this afternoon a young guy comes to the door with the exact sales pitch I heard eighteen months ago and also six months ago and I immediately asked him if he was selling Kirby Vacuums. His response was “so you’ve heard of us” to which I responded that there was no way that I was going to spend $2000 on a vacuum cleaner and that he might want to consider getting another job. He tried to tell me that his job  was the best job in the world and, as he did so, I closed the door.

If you ever have someone at your door and they ask you if you want an “opinion” on a consumer product or if they ask you if you would like a free carpet shampoo and cleaning, then do not let them in the door. Kirby Vacuums start at about $1200 and, if you buy on their installment plan, this can double with interest. Better to close the door to these people and go to the store and buy a perfectly good vacuum cleaner for $200.