Most annoying "upsell" stores

I too have a bite guard/bite splint or whatever it's called. TMJ issues a few years back. To me, I could have went to the local pharmacy and picked up one of those DIY bite guards and saved a few hundred bucks.

 

What's the deal with Costco?
If I want Hebrew National, why do I have to get the soda? Sell me a hot dog without the soda.

 

A frequent lament. All too often, foodstuffs are dangled as apparent loss leaders
in combo with grotesquely-marked-up soda. Soda industry has been frustrated in their inability to mark up prices to a satisfactory degree (for them!) for decades.

I'll cry on my pillow. Promise.

 

Last time I had this happen was at a tire store. Over the phone guy tells me tires came with a prorated road hazard warranty. Good enough for me. So I show up, they're writing the bill and he'd already put an unlimited road hazard on there for like 80 bucks. I almost told him to take the tires off the car. I mean, when I called, I said, "I need a quote on the LEAST EXPENSIVE set of tires you have." Wouldn't that tell him I'm not a candidate for the upsell? This shit floors me.

On Best Buy: I quit shopping there when the story surfaced about them having a customer arrested for writing down prices to comparison shop. With them, it doesn't get to the upsell for me.

 

It's still pretty crappy customer relations, but the guy wasn't just arrested for writing down prices. He was arrested for refusing to stop when asked and then refusing to leave when asked.

And to even further defend the borderline indefensible, the guy was doing it on a laptop in 1997, so it looked an awful lot like he was doing some corporate surveillance. Any store that thinks you are checking on their prices for a competitor will ask you to leave.

 

Fine. Corporate surveillance. Boo fucking who. If they have so little confidence in their prices that they can't withstand scrutiny from their competitors, screw'em. They don't need my business. And then they pound those extended warranties like there's no tomorrow. Sit and spin, Best Buy.

 

I hope I draw novvie for Secret Santa!

 

Something similar happened to me as a kid. Got kicked out of a baseball card shop when I broke out the Beckett magazine to look up card values. Just as I suspected, though, the proprietor was in fact ripping his buyers off.

 

I hate any clothing store where the sales people follow me around saying "We have that in blue as well" or "Those are very popular", etc. etc. LEAVE ME ALONE! I will call you if I need help.

 

I always refuse to give a phone number. Just give me the damned batteries -- I don't want to have to have a conversation about it later.

 

Someone at The Globe & Mail apparently reads sj:


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/work/shoppers-beware-of-the-upsell-before-youre-sold/article1706150/[/url]

 

As with phone spammers, I usually give a polite, no thank you, then if they keep it up, they get a warning shot fired off the bow, usually a "Look, this is all I need today but thanks anyway" or "I told you I wasn't interested", then I go off. Could I hang up the phone or walk away? Sure, probably make my life a lot less stressful, but in my mind people who don't appreciate a polite no thank you need to be told off if for nothing else than to prove a point.