I recently had an experience that would have cost me thousands of
dollars had not this newsgroup existed; here's the story in case
anyone else is in the same position.

A couple of months ago I allowed a water conditioning salesman from
local company "A" into my house for a "free" demonstration. After he
did his tests he tried to sell a whole house conditioning system for
$4000, and an RO unit for another $600. The price was too high and I
gave him an "I'll think about" answer; I didn't do any checking as I
had no intention of buying the product.

Ten days later I got a call from the national brand's call center.
The telemarketer referred to the salesman by name and told me that the
manager of the local distributer needed to "make his numbers" by the
end of the month and could give me a great deal. The equipment which
had been $4600 was now mine for $3000. It seemed too good to pass up
and I said yes. He told me that company "B" would be installing the
system the next day. This was NOT the same as the company "A" the
first salesman had represented which made me uneasy.

That evening I thought it over and did what I should have done before,
i.e., checked it out on the web. On this news group were multiple
posts complaining about the sales tricks, quality, and service of the
national brand. They even outlined the callback tactic that had
hooked me. I decided that $3000 was way too much for what I'd be
getting and called the local distributer to cancel.

What was interesting was that the voicemail for the installer, company
"B" mentioned by the telemartketer, referred to itself as company "A",
the one the first salesman had represented. Curious, I checked both
of them on the Better Business Bureau website.

It turned out that company "A" had no record with the BBB, but the
installer, company "B", had 18 complaints against it. Most of these
were for contract and service problems. It turned out that companies
"A" and "B" sold the same product, at the same address and phone
number, with the same people. In short, "B" and simply changed its
name to "A" to get away from its abyssmal record.

Thanks to those who've posted in the past and keep up the good work.