Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One time my wife and I were invited to a longtime friend's housewarming party. They had just bought a house and were inviting people over. Didn't think anything of it and made the long drive to get there.
Turns out, it was an MLM party for a product I can no longer recall (they have since moved on to another MLM). They are nice people, but we felt deceived that we had driven all this way only to be pressured to buy stuff we didn't want or need. My wife almost bought something out of guilt until I took her aside and said $60 would be better off going toward an extra student loan payment than useless stuff that will be forgotten in a couple months.
You guys realize that by buying crap that you really didn't want or need you are endorsing and perpetuating the behavior. If you want to help a friend out, just give her money or help cover the expense of whatever it is she needs.
I just say, "no thanks." If you say it enough word gets around that people shouldnt bother asking you. It works for me. Haha I don't care what people think, I'm not gonna be pressured into buying things I don't need or want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by amelia_wickless
So my question for you guys is what things are most annoying?? Is it less annoying or more annoying if it's coming from a complete stranger? What if a total stranger left a brochure/catalog for their business with a friendly hand-written note on your doorstep? If it was a product you were interested in, would you contact them? What about if you found a flyer on your car in a parking lot?
I hate finding things on my vehicle, it goes straight to the recycling bin. A few years ago, someone left a note on my doorstep letting me know she lives in the area and sells Avon. I was not annoyed by that at all. If I were into Avon, I probably would have bought from her. And it was one and done, she didn't do it again.
If I wanted it...I buy it, if I don't...then I say no...and like just stated - real friends aren't going to push you
into buying stuff you don't want or need.
Most overpriced specialty products tend to be a scam as far as being no more effective than their less expensive counterparts.... this includes things like road bikes and cars... there's a law of diminishing returns where you can find a good 'bang for the buck' price point, beyond which is reserved for high income people or people who have a serious hobby....this is where you find the high tech stuff that will eventually 'trickle down'... my $1200 road bike with shimano 105 is 85%-90% as effective as a $5000 road bike with dura ace and can take more abuse as well having an aluminum frame and 700x25mm tires... I take it a lot of places my co-worker with her $5K bike will not.
I am polite but I usually do not buy overpriced specialty products from people working on commission or overpriced brand name clothing from a store in a mall when the department store versions are 90% as effective in my case.
I think putting a flyer/catalog in ppls mailbox would be a better approach then putting it on a car. Ohh by the way if I got a catalog for something I was interested in Id be excited and even if I wasn't interested it wouldn't make me mad.
I could write a book about friends wanting me to be part of a marketing scheme and/or buy and sell products. It has literally got to the point where I have started being very direct and rude to any of the hovering vultures that are constantly trying to get me involved in anything involving my time and money combined.
The list is long:
01: Amway (and the myriad of similar schemes that have spawned from it). I have a couple of buddies that were involved in it like it was a cult. They would continually try to get me on board their crazy train and start doing it. One of them took me to lunch one day to 'hang out' but I was suspicious. In the middle of lunch he unleashed his sales pitch and nonsense. Despite the fact that he asked me to go to lunch, I asked for the bill, paid it and left. One thing I couldn't help but notice when I left was, after he tried luring me into some kind of warped and twisted sales/Amway type thing, I got in my new Wrangler that was parked next to his beat up, 12 year old Acura that had a broken headlight. It's like, I guess he didn't sell enough to qualify for a top tier seller car sweepstakes win yet. LOL.
02: Another buddy that I was hanging out with at a bar kept buying me beers and shots of Jager one night, then got me isolated on the patio despite the fact that I was actively close to hooking up with a gorgeous brunette with killer curves. He had heard from another friend that I had left a condo I owned empty for the previous five months when I bought and moved into a house. I didn't need to sell the condo yet (due to the market). He approached me with a hybrid, totally screwed up plan for him to 'buy the condo on a two year lease option to buy, where he would get a $5,000 credit for all of the work he was going to do inside of it and $250 a month would go into an account to cover escrow when it came time to close.' Like WTF Version 3.0 on that. It's like, seriously gangsta. We even got in an argument over it when I started laughing about how ridiculous it was.
03: And sometimes it has gotten way worse. Friends wanting hard money upfront for some kind of business deal that gets more screwed up the more they talk: flipping houses, buying franchises and a buddy in Washington that called me panicking when marijuana was legalized and wanted $50,000 by Monday so we could get started with a growing operation and starting making 'millions'. That conversation ended with him yelling at me on the phone 'Fck you!! You have the money!!' Like, that's not the most professional way to start a business relationship anyway. He followed up with an onslaught of texts, including one where he said he hoped I died skydiving and said I was a piece of sh*t. So, needless to say, that deal didn't happen.
04: And the latest and greatest is a buddy that claims to have 'invented' an exterior coating for surfaces like metal and vinyl that is better than anything that Sherwin Williams or any other company has ever made. He just needs a large capital investment to take this stuff 'to the next level'. I had to go full on Shark Tank on him on the phone and he kept his sales pitch going for over an hour and started accusing me of being cheap and it eventually got to the point where he said he was going to kick my as*. That was a few weeks ago and I have not gotten assaulted yet, so I think I'm safe for now.
As far as the parties and organizations that sell products. I was banging a flight attendant a while back that was telling me about how a co-worker of hers (another flight attendant) was making 'over $100k a year' some kind of beauty products and skin crèmes and that she was going to do it to and make over $100k a year. I was literally speechless at just how ridiculous all of those schemes are. They really require a sales force base that is clueless and cognitively deficient in some way in order to perpetuate the insanity.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
