I just had a Rain Soft rep leave my house this evening. I too was very put off by the whole experience. At first the calls started coming in to my house after my fiance and I purchased our first home. The women on the phone was very nice and told us that there was a free water test we could have since we have just moved into the neighborhood. We took the bait of a few free movie tickets as well as a gift certificate if we allowed them to come under the auspice of there being "no gimmick or pressure to purchase anything" from the women on the phone. As we began meeting with this gentlemen we quickly realized that this was going to be a sales pitch. As time progressed and we had grossly surpassed the promised 1 hour time mark for as long as it should take, we were able to get our "free test". Now being as both of us are educated and have a bit of knowledge of chemical compounds, organic compounds, hard water, water treatment and so on and so forth we were quite intrigued as to see what all the results were. We were also intrigued to see exactly how the test was performed. If the representative was honest on the chemical compounds that he used to demonstrate how "hard the water was" then I have to cry foul on this test! He stated that he was using a water Ph "stabilizer" which turned out to be an acidic compound and then he was going to see how many drops of this other compound he had it would take to neutralize this water sample or turn it blue after the first had made it red. This however is interesting because the second compound is a basic compound and could in fact turn the acidic red water sample (which was to illustrate that the sample was hard) back to a blue basic sample after he added the correct amount of compound. Next after all of the dog and pony show we got down to business. He advised us that the system was only going to cost $10, 980.00 and we could finance this for 76 months for a tiny interest rate of 19.99% if we had decent credit and 23.99% if we didn't. This right there almost made me jump out of my skin but then he began to off all of the "deals we could only get for signing up now" and magically the price came down to about $5,500.00. Interesting that they are standing behind their price for retail and all the outcomes from the softener but if we signed right away it was almost cut in half??? Quite a great product if you can cut 50% off the price. I'm no fool and understand that if something is of great quality and blah blah blah, you have to pay for it and I am not necessarily opposed if the product and service are excellent but when you start cutting your price in half for just signing now, it makes me wonder if your blowing sunshine up my ass about this whole thing. Finally, after we said that we were going to half to think about this, things began to get very pushy. He did not like this and was very adamant about us losing out on this price if we didn't sign now and yadda yadda yadda... He also stated that there were plenty of people in our town that had this and we need to make this decision now because "if we did not become one of the first two households to sign the deal then we would lose out on a ton of things"....wait a second, I thought you stated that there was plenty of houses in my town that had this same system? Why then must I be part of the first two to sign the deal and get it??? I smelled the BS even more so there then ever before in the meeting. I then stated sharply that I was going to think about it and that we would have to get back to him tonite or tomorrow about our decision. I asked for his number and advised him that losing his wonderful one time price was a risk we were willing to take. He then got the picture at this point and began to make his exit...only 3 hours after getting to my house! I should have eaten dinner first unlike the previous poster, I was now cooking dinner at 10 pm!!! To top this hole ordeal off, to my utter amazement and annoyance, as I began to cook dinner, there was a knock on my front door at what was now 10:15 PM and as I opened it there he was again!!! He stated that he hadn't left yet and was out in his car on the phone with his boss who now wanted to talk to me. I said sure why the F not since you have been here this whole time already WTF. As I began to speak to his "office manager" I realized that this was no light hearted conversation. During his presentation the salesman stated that the boss was so sick and he was not feeling well but needed me to sign now. Now that I am speaking with him, I realized that he was NOT SICK and that he was actually really rude and ultra pushy. I explained that we were on a fixed income and as a young couple had to think about it and he was really angry saying that we don't know what we are missing, this is a one time opportunity and if we did not act now it would be gone tomorrow and all the same stuff as before, except on a completely different level that was more then aggressive sales techniques, but just down right rude and obnoxious. After he was fed up with me not budging, he asked to speak with the salesman again. Then after a short conversation, he hung up and stated the he was going to be going now but was wondering how to get to a local convenience store. Now this is when I really got shaded out because he stated that he lived in a town not far from mine, but then asked how to get to a well known local store. He also did not know that if he kept going straight and made a left after passing the store, then he would be on his way back to his house that was right down the road about 10 minutes. I then felt as though it was time for him to go since he implied that he could come back in 30 minutes to sign the papers if we wanted and I said no thanks and I would call him when I made a decision. After some careful criticism we decided that this kind of company was not for us and we still could not afford it so we called and said no thanks and we would keep them in mind in the future when we had more money if we still need their services. On a side note: I found out that my township does not allow people to go door to door selling goods and or services especially under the false pretenses of a free service with pressure of purchasing anything. Therefore since my fiance was feeling so uncomfortable about the whole experience because it creeped her out how he hung around outside, i will be going to the township management office in the morning and filing a complaint against them. Hopefully then they will realize that it is wrong to lie to people just to get access to them and their house. It is also a shame because it seems as though their system would work well but they are not going about it the right way. I understand they do not want to spend money on advertisement and such but if they are so proud of their product and it is as good as they say, then why are they relying on WOM from citizens that own their product? I will end my rant, yet I hope this is a warning for anyone that they might trick into this shit they are peddling.
