Last year we bought two, no make that three, Oreck vacuum cleaners. An upright for my old house (with a free over-the-shoulder vacuum), and a set (canister and orbiter) for down here. The vacuum cleaners for down here were supposed to be heavy-duty and specifically for filthy dirty old SHAG carpeting.
Within the first week of owning my upright, I had to take it in because I sucked up a marker lid. One would think an expensive vacuum cleaner with a 21 year "service" plan could handle a marker lid. Within a few months I had to replace the belt. The roller brush and another belt burned out within a year.
We burned the canister out in six months. Seriously. The filter clogged and melted the motor. I just took it back to the store where we bought it and the manager swapped me out for a new upright that was worth half the price of the canister, brand new. Of course when she swapped me, she didn't tell me she was giving me a cheap vacuum. So I called her today.
I'm the pit bull of the family when it comes to getting my money back and getting warranties honored. Honestly, why don't companies just tell us up front that we are buying shoddy merchandise the day we buy it? Why do I have to waste my time on the phone arguing with people who are going to get paid the same whether they honor their product or not? I remember when our hard drive crashed and we lost all our baby pictures of IJ. I was on the phone for hours bullying people at the call center in India. But we got a new hard drive.
The manager at the Oreck store where I bought my vacuums was good. She played the "I'm a good guy because I'm working with you instead of playing hard like the guys at the other stores," trick. She played the "I call tell you are a good mother and your kids are so cute," card. She even tried the "if you are going to invest this much money in a vacuum, you would think you would care enough to check a filter so its all your fault" line.
But I played better. I had the "my husband's job was cut and I was forced to move into my father-in-laws house with shag carpet," the "My husband did all the vacuuming and he burned it out while I was three hours away taking care of my children-how was I to know the filter needed changing? the filter should last longer than three months" and the "I invested over two thousand dollars into your store-you aren't actually losing any money in this swap and you tricked me." And I cried.
Oh, I had so much fun. The secret to getting your money back is to find the weak spot of your opponent. Some people care about your approval and don't want you mad at them. Some people don't care if you are mad, but don't want to see you suffer because they really do have a heart under their tough exterior. By the end of our conversation, this woman confided that she had lost her home in foreclosure, had to fire most of her employees, had to close early every night so she could go work a second job, and had worked in an orphanage and that's how she knew that I was a good mom.
She gave me two years supply of vacuum cleaner bags for the new upright, a years supply for my old upright, and when I told her I was going to contact her district manager to let them know how kind she had been to me, she threw in a package of bags for the over-the-shoulder vacuum. Hah!
