Anyone been to the dinner4two presentation? Read my experience (not good)

As an update, after my rant on Facebook (the first time I've logged in to that waste of time in probably a year) the President of the company emailed me saying he is mailing me a pair of some of their best knives. Will this change my view of his company? Probably not as I am the type of consumer that will not go back to a company that I've had a bad experience with, especially the first time before I've purchased anything at all. But it's a nice gesture and we'll see...



first here is there site:

Dinner4two.ca

Testimonials say they've had their products for 24 years.

WHOIS shows the site was registered on 2010/09/02 24 years must fly pretty quickly for some people... No other info was listed.

The rest

Alright, my fiancée went to a wedding show recently and I was unable to attend due to work. I didn't really want to go because I told her all it was going to be was people trying to sell you expensive overpriced stuff.

Anyways she told me she got a phone call from a dinner4two.ca rep saying we won a 2 night trip or our choice of wedding bands, regardless of price. The only catch was we had to sit through a 2 hour presentation. I told her we won't get anything unless we buy something...

So we get there and a guy was talking to us and 2 Other couples that were also there asking what we do and whatnot.

We go in and a woman who seemed nice at first had a demonstration of all this cookware that seemed really good. The woman was a little reluctant to tell me the manufacturer (hmm, I wonder why) at the end but she did (forget who it is now).

Here's where I thought the products may be of inferior quality: she said a few times that the company does not advertise their products or sell them in mainstream media/stores, they do this so they can keep their prices low and give away trips

I was contemplating on maybe buying a small set to replace some of the older stuff until se wrote the "suggested price" of the 10 piece set for (wait for it) $4999.90+tax+shipping.

I kind of laughed to myself when she said "but wait, if you buy today you'll get 40% off and pay only $2999.90".

After explaining the price, she talks about the warranty, saying its not a limited warranty it's a 50 year warranty, I asked twice in different ways what was NOT covered. She would tiptoe around the question and go on to what was covered again. Apparently all scratches were covered so I asked, if I drop a cookware piece by accident or bend a fork or spoon by accident then it's covered? She said if its a scratch you have to be able to feel it with your nail, if its a bend it needs to be a manufacturer defect. I then asked but I thought it was covered regardless because that's what you said 5 minutes ago. She said well you can't use a pot as a hammer. (Seriously).

As she was talking to all of us at the end of the presentation se asked if I was interested, I told her that I can't afford to drop $3000ish on a 10 piece cookware set because I am looking to buy a house and pay for a good poison of the wedding.

Here is where I got a little angry. She had the nerve to say "you can't afford $30 a week? Do you smoke? Go to the casino? Etc?"

I replied "yes I do all of those things, but I am not looking at the weekly cost of $30 for 3 years, I'm looking at the full cost. I could buy about 6 full sets right now if I wanted to but I'm not throwing that much money at anything without researching the products first"

Then she says "if you can't afford $30/week them how do you expect to pay for a wedding and a house, why did you come?"

I was pissed at this point and said "thank you for insulting a potential customer that may have bought something until you tarted to question my finances, you can be sure the company will hear about this as well as your company's Facebook page and other sites as well as the insane prices." She said there is the door, bye (and handed me the 2 night trip voucher (which can only be used Sunday-Wednesday)


I left and told my fiancée "I told you this is what it was going to be". I wasn't mad that we went I just knew it was going to be something like that. I'm sorry but who in their right mind pays $3000 for a 10 piece cookware set. I feel sorry for anyone who gets suckered into the "it's only $30/week for 3 years.


The funny thing is, all those payments add up to $4320 after 3 years, not including the 2% interest which you apparently get back in a gift card.




Short form:

Went to a demo of cookware
Find out it was possible to bake a cake on a stove?
Get asked to pay $3000 for a 10 piece cookware set (btw the $1500 set didn't even have a frying pan)
Get insulted when I say I can't afford to spend $3000 on cookware since saving for wedding and house
Left with 2 night stay (choosing Niagara Falls)


Does anyone else have experiences with this show?


Also if you get called for this. Unless you are insane enough to spend $3000 on cookware, don't bother going. Spend maybe $1000 or around there for some really nice stuff. Maybe it's because I'm 26 and am doing a strict budget...


ADDED:

I found the manufacturer is royal prestige and the warranties are not what they claim at all, they have poor customer service and the products are nothing like how they are explained

Here is a link with many posts saying how poor of a company they are

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowne ... stige.html



Also, I am no longer easy to persuade to spend my money,not like I was 4+ years ago. I will also be putting my review on their Facebook page and if it gets deleted I will put it on there again, this is mainly because of the woman insulting me about my finances but I can guarantee I make 2x what she makes per month.