Is the Toadsuckin' Dealer featured in this...

[East_TX_Spa]

video expose' a member here?  If so, you're a toadsucker!

This Message is Windsurfdog Approved:

http://wcco.com/iteam/local_story_278142058.html

Terminator

[Jacuzzi Jim]

 Least the term Jacuzzi was not used.


  Deal sounded to good to be true?   Is that a $12,000 spa? Appeared to be a Caldera
it doesnt mention the dealer it would be interesting to hear his side of the story.

 And last is that just a dealer specific offer or is that something the manufacturer would offer.  

 We have called sales events (factory rebate sale) of said amount off spas but it never intails the consumer having to do anything we just take a 1000 or so of the price and call it a factory rebate.

[D.P. Roberts]

Those toadsuckin' tarpiddlers!!

I love the way my vocabulary is growing on this board...

[wmccall]

Is there really a point to bringing this up?  The guy bought the spa more than 3 years ago, the report is from June. Isn't consumer's trust out of business now?  Is this practice continuing?  Outside of Minnesota?

[East_TX_Spa]

I'm sorry.  The only reason I posted it was that it was dated from October 2006 and a recent travelling spa show that passed through our area (I believe in November) was still offering a "rebate program".  I felt it was still topical.

Terminator

[wmccall]

I'm sorry.  The only reason I posted it was that it was dated from October 2006 and a recent travelling spa show that passed through our area (I believe in November) was still offering a "rebate program".  I felt it was still topical.

Terminator

Was it the same type of massive money rebate?    

[East_TX_Spa]

Was it the same type of massive money rebate?    

I honestly don't know if it was Consumer's Trust or not.  One of my customers stopped by and she was told that there was a rebate program that would allow her to get almost all of her money back, so I assumed it was the same (or perhaps operating under a different name.)

Terminator

[Chas]

It dawns on me that there may be a shopper or two who stumble upon this thread and wonder what in tarnation we are talking about. It would be especially scarry if they went to the link and viewed the video report without a little background.

So I thought I would take a moment to give that background information. Free.

Most of this has gone away, but it seems that several years ago some retailers began to offer a 'Rebate Program' to their customers. There were hot tub dealers, RV dealers, boat dealers, and more. The promise was that you pay for your item and then get your money back at some point in the future. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

So far it has proven to be a complete scam. I realize that there may be people out there who have worked the program and gotten their money back as promised, but none of them have found there way here to post about it. Several who have not gotten their money back have found their way here and other boards like this and have posted about it. Also, some states have launched investigations into this type of thing and all seem to have found people who ended up going to jail and/or out of business.

The companies who created this program were not spa companies. They seem to be willing to work with any retailer who sells big ticket items. One or two spa companies did connect with this type of program in a big way, putting info about the program into the hands of their sales teams in retail showrooms and at home shows across the nation. But those all seem to have come to the conclusion that it was not real, and all that I know of have made statements to the effect that they were no longer affiliated in any way with these scemes.

So - shopper - if you want to buy a spa, please do. And I know you will be glad you did. But please don't fall for one of these scemes where you are promised to get all or most of your money back. You will not. You cannot.

One more thing, which I'm not sure is connected but sure seems to be: The folks who did get taken in by one of these scemes all seem to have paid in excess of twelve thousand dollars for the tub. I don't know how that number comes into play, but I have yet to see a news item about one of these folks who got taken for less. Now, I'm not saying they lost all their money, after all they do have a spa in their backyard to show for it. But not all tubs cost that much - you can get many fine products for less. The biggest most full-featured tub I offer is just about ten, and I have many for half that and some very good simple tubs for still less.

HTH

 8-)

[Brewman]

I think when the local Master Spa dealer was pushing that program, you had to pay extra for the spa- like if you paid X thousand above normal price, you'd get a lot more back in 3 years.  
 I recall seeing that in their weekly add in our local newspaper every Sunday.
So not only were they mis leading customers about their never to be recieved rebates, they were charging them thousands over retail for the privelege.

[Jacuzzi Jim]

 Its sad and tough luck for that people fall for the?




If its to good to be true it probably is.

[Brewman]

Exactly.  They were promising very high rebates- the net cost of the tub after rebate was below $2K or so, IIRC.  No way could that ever work.  I guess the prospect of an extreme bargain causes some peoples common sense to go flying out the window.

[stuart]

I think there is still a need to continue to bring it up as long as companies like Master continue to offer a cashable voucher program in the wake of this. They still offer it at every on of their "fake" super sales while claiming 15 or more manufactures only have ususpecting customers find it's just them and the rebate is nothing more than a marketing scam.

We participated in this program with Consumer Promotions trained, encoraged and even pushed by Master Spas. We paid $170k into the program so that our customers would recieve monies back if they followed through. I would have rather shared that money as a discount had I seen the writing on the wall.

[stuart]

To add a bit to Chas's post....

It was not a complete "scam" in the beginning; Master Spa’s sales manager turned it into one. (along with some unethical people from other industrys.)

The program was difficult but could have worked if it was presented and done like Consumer promotions wrote it.

We researched the program for a year before doing it and got every bit of documentation available. We even talked to Adrian the founder of the program in England (He is in hiding somewhere from what I last heard).

We did have customers get money back but due to the fact that there was no consistency in how it was sold and many people used it as an outright lie it failed miserably.

We followed the guidelines to a fault...We were told that we could not mark the spas up for more than we normally sold them for so we didn't however, we also did not give any discounts on the spas.

We did not sell it as an “investment” in fact, we didn’t sell it we gave it to customers and put the same emphasis on it as we would have a lottery ticket. It was free to them and we warned that the entire program was based on loopholes that most people failed to get through. Our statement to every customer was “We are selling spas not cashable vouchers, the voucher brought you in but if your not happy with the spa and the price don’t do it thinking your getting a spa for free.” “If this voucher doesn’t pan out you need to be just as happy with the spa in three years.”

The "Scam" part of the program should fall directly on Master Spas and the fact that they pushed this with their dealers yet did not police it.