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This complaint was filed by a consumer against DirectBuy of Akron-Canton on 10/13/2004.

description of complaint:

I joined the club on May 6, 2004, based on the sales presentation I attended at the Akron-Canton showroom.

I believe the company used outright lies and misleading statements in the 1 1/2 hour presentation about the benefits of this membership. I was assured that we would receive "deep discounts" on cabinets and flooring - two of the things that we had said we were planning to buy. I have since done the research and found my local hardware store selling the same brand cabinets at the same price. I have contacted the company directly to request a refund based on this information. The below information is a portion of the letter I mailed, providing additional detail on the false claims.

Claims/assertions that I believed when making the decision to sign a contract with DirectBuy/UCC TotalHome, owned by Litco Management Group (henceforth referred to as DirectBuy) on the evening of May 6, 2004:

• I will save 50% and MORE off actual retail sales prices (as shown to me during the presentation using actual sales flyers from Kaufmann's, Wayside Furniture, and others) for items such as furniture, kitchen and bath cabinets, carpet, tile, and more.
• I will save 20-40% off actual retail sales prices on a wide variety of other items for the home.
• I will buy directly from the manufacturer at manufacturer's wholesale prices and will have access to each manufacturer's confidential wholesale price list ("you will know how much things really cost").
• I will have access to the full line of all items from each manufacturer carried by DirectBuy.

All of these claims/assertions were made by Bud Keener in the sales presentation my husband and I attended at the DirectBuy showroom. Before attending, I had also gathered information from a 30-minute infomercial, written promotional materials that were sent to my home, and from the UCC TotalHome web site. All of the information in the oral and written advertisements were consistent and led me to make the decision to join.

After much searching and comparing the retail store prices to the DirectBuy catalogs, I discovered gross inconsistencies from what I had been told/sold:

• I found nothing at a savings of 50% off actual retail prices (not MSRP, but real prices found at retailers. This is what we were shown in the presentation). Also, and very importantly, I found NO savings off kitchen/bath cabinets. I found the exact same price (or better!) on the exact same products at my local hardware store without having to pay a dime to enter their store.
• Large appliances were sometimes cheaper at the retail stores (and not loss leaders, short-term promotion, etc.) These are regularly-priced items found at retail for the same or less than offered by DirectBuy).
• I did not find confidential wholesale price lists in the showroom. I found Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price catalogs. I also found these same catalogs at local retail stores where I was able to freely view all the information enclosed in them.
• I found that some items in manufacturers lines were not available to me (I tried to find a Jenn-Air gas grill that was priced at Lowe's for $599 and was told "We don't carry the low-end Jenn-Air products").

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