This was originally published at http://vancouver.ctv.ca/olsen.jsp?id=/olsen/stories/2005/11/olsen-20051122.htm and is reproduced here without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright act. © 2007 CTVglobemedia.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
DirectBuy is not cheap to join, but for those planning some big expenditure like major renovations or building a home, it could save you money. But as one man found out, in his case, the promises just didn't match the reality.
"We were going to save somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12,000 we thought. So $12,000 dollars for a $4300 investment seemed reasonable," says Paul Lepage.
He was remodeling his home and building a new kitchen. He had his eye on new kitchen cabinets that cost $20,000.
"It was supposed to be 37% of retail that is what their catalogue says, so in our case it would have been $7400 instead of $20,000.
Like a lot of people Paul was skeptical about the promised savings
He recalls, "They are telling me, 'you are going to save $12,000 on the cabinets' and I say to them 'that's just too good to be true, that's just not possible' and they said 'that's why people join DirectBuy - it's too good to be true.'
So Paul joined DirectBuy. The supplier did give him a discount but the quote was $17,000, not $7000, and his expected $12,000 in savings had shrunk considerably.
"If you are only building kitchen cabinets and you expected $12,000 and you are only going to get back $2000 or $3000 then you can't substantiate the $4000 membership anymore," says Paul.
He went back to DirectBuy for answers, recording the conversation they told him he did it wrong he was not supposed to approach the cabinet company directly even though he'd been given a contact name by DirectBuy.
"When you go you are not going to get that discount that's in the book. When you go there directly you get less of a discount on the cabinets," states the recording of a DirectBuy employee.
But moments later the instructions changed again and he was told he was supposed to go directly to the cabinetmaker.
"If you know what you want to order, order directly from that corporate vendor," the employee says.
The DirectBuy rep admits something had gone wrong.
"It's supposed to work out to .37 after installation and it clearly isn't," the tape goes on to say.
We checked the Better Business Bureau complaint record of the four BC Direct Buy outlets for the past thirty-six months.
But the BBB statistics do not include complaints made by consumers that were not pursued.
The Provincial Government has also received complaints.
"There is a constant flow of those kinds of complaints and that in itself is a reason why we should be looking at this to see if there is more legislative remedies that need to be put in place," says John Les, BC's Solicitor General.
Paul put his $4300 membership on his Visa so he's asked Visa to refund his money after DirectBuy in Vancouver refused.
"Visa has returned our money to us but only on a temporary basis until they find out if DirectBuy is going to contest the reversal of the charge," says Paul.
In the end Paul is shopping for his renovated kitchen the old fashioned way by shopping around.
"Taking our time shopping around we've been able to save a lot of money and it won't be 67% but it'll probably be in the neighbourhood of 40%," he says.
DirectBuy would not speak to us on camera. We were told it's against corporate policy. It also did not respond to specific emailed questions. Each outlet is an individual franchise that sets it's own membership fees. DirectBuy only makes money off selling those memberships.
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