My Idiot Family Bought Into Multi-level Marketing

Anger
21

I had a door-to-door person come by a year or so back, and the first thing out of my mouth was, “Do we have to do this now?” This should have been a warning to the salesman that I was exhausted and stressed after a long day, my place was a mess, and I was in no mood to be sold anything, but he insisted, so I let him in.

I let him make his sales pitch, and then thanked him, asked if I could have some time to do some research of my own and call him back. He insisted that I had to sign tonight.

My personality… I grew up being nagged a lot, so if you try to lead me gently in a direction, I’ll probably follow, but the moment there’s tension on the rope, I’ll dig in my hooves and refuse to budge. The first, polite, “No,” was hard, because his pitch made sense at first glance, but his unwillingness to let me come back to the offer when I was in a better mood was enough to push me there. After that, the tension was on the rope.

It was amusing how many different “polite but firm” refusals he was able to brush off and just not leave. I even made a comment to that effect, and he brushed that off. He took my desire to verify his claims with someone who didn’t benefit if I believed them as an insinuation that he was a liar - no, I wasn’t calling him a liar; I was saying that he had more incentive to believe the good things about his product than the bad things, but it’s interesting that that’s where his mind went…

I eventually got rid of him (with an apology for wasting his time, so that I could add insult to injury), but he was there for a good ninety minutes trying to sell me a water purifier from a company that (and I am shocked, shocked to tell you this) got dismal reviews and an F rating from the BBB.

I then posted signs up around my neighborhood, urging anyone who had signed up to cancel, sent a warning out of Facebook, and wrote my local government representative to request that he hurry up and get the door-to-door sales ban that had already been passed into effect ASAP. It’s a bad idea to get on my bad side when I’m worn out.

You can’t say I didn’t warn him, though, right from the start.

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22

I gave up on those years ago. Exploiting people’s habit of politeness is how these parasites operate. Never debate, never answer questions. My responses vary from rude (hang up, close the door in their face) to ruder. Sometimes I’ll amuse myself by letting them talk on the phone while I go away, or by asking if they are familiar with the do-not-call list, but mostly I just cut them off mid-spiel.

:+1::+1::clap:

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23

Damn, might as well do ride sharing at that point.

so a stake in the heart? Got it!!

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24

He knocked on the wrong door! :clap::clap:

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25

Decent door; were I awake enough to have recognized him as a scam rather than the member of a provincial program (or whatever it was that he was implying to get his foot in the door), I would have just turned him away. He knocked on the wrong door at exactly the wrong time.

Edit to add:

If I recall correctly, I had just spent a long Saturday helping with first aid recertification; I had a long Sunday ahead of me doing exactly the same, I was running on not-enough sleep, it very well may have been a laundry weekend, and my place was a disaster (to the point where I had to move things out of the way so that the front door would open and I could answer it). The last part was probably one of the biggest factors - I hate having people in my house when it’s a mess (and, when I got sick of hearing the spiel and couldn’t get him to leave, I started cleaning my kitchen as a not-so-subtle hint that we were done, which he, of course, ignored).

So, to say that the salesperson picked a bad time to come into my house and try to convince me that I needed a dodgy water purifier is a bit of an understatement; if he had checked out, then sure, he got me at a time when I was more pliable than average, but as soon as he refused to let me do my due diligence… Yeah, he should have cut his losses and left.

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26

Somehow I’ve managed to listen politely for 5 seconds to gauge my interest, then say “not interested” and close the door even if they’re still speaking. Local kids I’ll talk to and maybe contribute to school something or other, but the guy who was selling “steaks for Xmas!!!” got the door slammed in his face.

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27

I liked being able to use the Kirby vacuum cleaner, even if it was just for a day.

I remember one of those things I attended, it had the guy saying that there’s a $50 bill taped under the seat of one of the chairs, and if we stayed to listen blah blah blah dreck dreck dreck, we’d get to find out who had it. I got up and left, and he ACTUALLY pointed me out and tried to shame me! I have to say, it’s one of my first real acts of public “fuck this” that I ever did; and in thinking back about it, I don’t remember feeling ashamed of leaving before finding the money, only a bit for even going to the damned event in the first place.

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28

“They Tried to Make a Mary Kay Girl out of Me” - now, THAT was scary, especially back in the 1980s - I went to a meeting it was sooooo Stepford!

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29

Did you at least check under the seat before you left? :grin:

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30

Nah, I didn’t care at that point.

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31

Mormons came to my door recently. I had ditched work and gotten high. They asked me some stuff about god, and I told them I didnt believe. One of the guys asked me “oh, you’ve never heard of God?”, and launched in to his spiel, then offered me some pamphlets.

To which I said “I’m not interested in your god, but I’ll take pamphlets on the tooth fairy! My kid is just getting teeth.”

Long story short, the remaining year we lived in that town, all Mormon missionaries crossed the road to get away from me.

Be rude. Worth it.

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32

I used to live in an apartment that was the top floor of an old house. I had a Mormon elder go into the front door of the house without knocking, then open the door to my apartment and walk into my living room.

I was sitting there on my computer, wearing a robe and nothing else.

You’d think me telling him he was trespassing would have been the big hint, but nooooo. He tried to get a connection by saying “oh I’m into computers too”. It took a lot of me telling him to get out before he got out.

And then they wonder why hardly anybody wants to listen to them.

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33

I haven’t had to deal with the Soldiers of the Army of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (excepting family) in years.

On the one hand, especially having family in the Church, I’d like to respect their beliefs, and, again, politely and firmly tell them that I’m not interested in any God that tortures people, nor any religion that tortures he Bible until it says that He doesn’t.

On the other hand, it’d be so much fun to sing either “Hello” or “I Believe” if they ever do come knocking on my door.

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34

I really didn’t mean to be so rude. But I had had a tough day, hence the ditchin’ and smokin’.

And I mean, “you don’t know about god?”
C’mon, take the loss like a grown up.

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35

“Oh, I know about God… That’s why I don’t believe it.”

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36

A friend suggested saying “God in his infinite wisdom did not give me the gift of faith. Who am I to question God’s will?”

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37

That’s much nicer than one I did to a rando proslytizer on a bus once: “My dear woman, I am God.”

In my defence, in some religions it’s kind of true, just because existence itself is holy.

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38

The stranger in a strange land gambit.

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39

I had Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on my door in Japan. I immediately saw the copy of The Watchtower that they were proffering, said “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Japanese” and shut the door.

One month later, they came back with copies of the magazine in several different languages, along with a card explaining that “although we do not speak the same language, we feel that we have a great deal in common and would like to share some literature with you”. Again, impeccably translated into several different languages.

I was so shocked and they were so nice about it that I took a copy of the magazine out of politeness. I mean, even immigration officers don’t usually speak English in Japan, and multiple translation of anything is so rare as to be non-existent.

A month later, they came round again, this time with a third person, who could actually speak English. He did an introductory spiel, asked me if I had read the magazine and if I had any questions.

I replied in Japanese and said “look, I’m really sorry for wasting your time. I speak Japanese but I’m not interested and couldn’t think of an easy way to say that the last couple of times. Please leave me alone.”

The three of them looked so shocked that I almost felt bad about closing the door on them before they could reply. Almost.

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40

My late father, who in many other ways was a real JERK, was quite the card when it came to religion, and when it came to the JWs coming to the door, it would go something like this, if he didn’t get to the front door first:
(doorbell rings)
Dad: “Who is it?”
Whoever answered the door: “Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Dad: “Tell 'em to hold on, I’ll be there in a minute!”

And then he’d argue? discuss? whether or not he’d be saved, et al. And he wasn’t mean or nasty. I don’t know if he ever told them what he told us kids at times - that we should worship the Sun, because without it, we’d all be dead.

WELL - He was right on that count.

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