We were warned by friends that they were cheated out of about $5, 000 for a DirectBuy membership fee. They forked over all that money because DirectBuy told them that they would be able to buy things for their new home at the manufacturers' price -- at a 50% to 60% discount. Little
did they know, after DirectBuy tacked on hefty shipping and handling fees, they were able to find most of the items for sale through DirectBuy at the same prices, if not lower prices, at retail stores like Lowes and Best Buy!!

If you were scammed by DirectBuy, like my friends, you should contact the law firm Craig T. Matthews & Associates at [email protected] or 937.434.9393. That law firm has sued DirectBuy before in both Ohio and
Indiana (where DirectBuy's are located), and it's conducting an investigation about DirectBuy's misleading promises. If you want your membership fee refunded, you should contact Craig Matthews to pursue a class action case against DirectBuy. No matter what state you're from,
his firm should be able to help you. Be warned!!

I agree with what everyone is saying.We went thru a nightmare over our first and only purchase.This was very unfriendly and i felt confused and my train of thought was a mess when we sighned.I have fibroalgia and a bad back cant take the kind of stress i went thru.I filed a complaint with the BBB.And directbuy replyed back to them saying just the opposite of what happened.I found at least 12 things they said that was just not true.Shame on the founder all the way down or should i say up the ladder.They dont have any morals or feelings.Allt they care about is decieving innocent hard working people just trying to save a little money.Thats not going to happen with us because i am afraid to buy anything else.This D.B. we went to In my opinion is totally backward in the way the process is done.

There are probably thousands upon thousands of complaints on DirectBuy. I will add my two cents of how much of a scam they are reflecting the opinion of many.

Their membership fees are $5000 which they do not disclose till the end of a very boring, annoying presentation and tour that they make you take. Ok fine that is their business model and I will accept that. But they are fairly pushy when getting you to sign, essentially threaten you by saying you can never come back and sign up again for the next 5 years and in our case, we were mislead be a rep saying that their online website was getting a makeover and would give us access to all their products availabel in the catalogues.

Let me tell you, THAT IS NOT TRUE! They have the worst website and what they dont represent clearly is though you are getting products at the manufacturer's rate, they charge 8-16% in handling fees and then regular tax of 8% or so. So you might say well, that might not be too bad but wrong!

For the online generation thisis the WORST way to shop, you cannot find most products online, there inventory represented online is never up to date with pricing or pictures or product. You have to go in physically each time to possibly only one locaiton in your area, you cannot take friends/family for tehir opinions, you have to be married and only then get in, and after all that you are sifting through the most archaic way of shopping - physical catalogues that are such a STUPID way to shop in comparison with online shopping and using keyword searches.

DIRECTBUY IS A SCAM. Even if you see it in the catalogue, you hvae to search around all over teh place to find that product physically somewhere to get an idea of what it looks like and almost everytime you will find that same product online cheaper!! Online stores do not have the same overheards that are associated with physical storefronts and often times they will take a loss for volume sales which directbuy will not.

I do not forsee DirectBuy surviving the era of people shifting to far more sophisticated methods of online shopping - they are misrepresentative, pushy, they scam you into a decision of membership with little time to think it over and use pressure tactics, and in our case misrepresented the online functionalities, and if you are smart shopper you can find ANYTHING online cheaper than DirectBuy.

We obviously learnt the hard way. PLEASE DO NOT JOIN DIRECTBUY, IT IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY AND YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND IT CHEAPER ONLINE!

This complaint is about the violation of basic consumer right at DirectBuy. I and my wife saw an advertisement inviting us to visit the showroom at DirectBuy. When we got there, we were treated like prisoners. The basic right of a consumer to walk around a showroom to look at displays was denied us. When challenged, the store manager resorted to brute force in an attempt to kick us out. The incident occurred at the DirectBuy store in Mountain View, California on 12/6/08.

We are in the middle of adding a second story to our house. We saw an advertisement of DirectBuy on TV and decided to visit their showroom to check it out. we arrived at DirectBuy and were greeted by a host and the store manager. Then we were shown to a desk by the host for a short interview and to wait for the start of the infomercial presentation.

The infomercial was long and boring, but we found out how much the membership would cost. I was almost ready to pay that, if we find the right merchandises in the showroom. After the infomercial, we were walked to the showroom for more presentation on how low prices were at DirectBuy. Surrounded by interesting furniture displays, my wife started walking around to examine them. She did that also to escape the never ending presentations. She was bluntly told by the store manager that she is not allowed to walk around. We were offended by his action. We are not used to being told what to do and what not to do within what we considered our right.

After the presentation, we were told to fill out a survey. I began to feel that we were being herded around like animals. So I told the host and the store manager that we are not going to comply. The manger asked us to leave. We asked if we can visit the showroom to see the merchandises. He said we cannot because there is confidential pricing information there. I told him that I was only interested in looking at the merchandises and will not look up the pricing information in the catalogs which are kept in a separate library. He said no and quickly showed us out of the store.

While at the parking lot, I had a second thought. We spent money and time to arrange for a babysitter, drove the distances to get to the store, and set aside time from our busy schedule, why should we leave without seeing the showroom? I have a free visitor's pass to Direct Buy's showroom. I can challenge the store manager. I asked my wife if she wants to go back to see the showroom. She declined. S

o I went back in by myself and asked to see the showroom as part of the activities DirectBuy invited me to do. He was visibly annoyed by my challenge to his authority as the store manager (I later found that he is also the owner of the store). He called his security team to throw me out. Two heavy fellows and their security manager came. The heavy fellows grabbed my arms and started removing me from the store. I resisted.

Sensing that the manager's order was inappropriate, the security manager disobeyed him and stopped the forced eviction. He started reasoning with me. I gave my reason and he appeared to have understood it. He seems to be a more reasonable person than the store manager, who appears to be more concern about exerting his absolute power like a dictator. I also sense that he is so concern about his big ego that he is willing to drag down the corporate image of DirectBuy with it.

I told security manager that he has to call the police to get me out. I ignored their order and walked around the showroom. But needless to say, by that point, I was in no mood to examine any merchandise. I did that just to make a point that a consumer has rights. I don't know if he called the police or not. I am not a lawyer. I don't know what the limit of my right is within their store, and I don't really want to go to court to find that out. So I left after I proved my point.

Most stores treat customers with respect and trust. We can walk around freely in the showroom of almost any store because the store trusts that we would not do anything inappropriate. All DirectBuy needs to do is to inform visitors that it is not appropriate to look at the confidential pricing information during the visit, and almost all of us would have complied. For the few who do not, a case can be made to kick them out.

At DirectBuy, my wife and I were treated like thieves even before we have done anything they considered inappropriate. The so called “confidential pricing information" is just a poor excuse for a brute business practice. I frankly do not see what benefit DirectBuy could derive out of such a practice. That is why I was dumbfounded by DirectBuy's insistence that they had acted properly when I complained about this instance to the corporate headquarters.

I filed a complaint to the Better Business Bureau and ask for an apology as a settlement. Not only did the store manager refused, he accused me of “trespassing“ and “walking around the areas of the building that are off limit to guests". When DirectBuy invited us to visit its facility and we agreed, we assumed that both parties agreed to be abided by commonly accepted societal rules of conduct. For example, both parties would have understood that private offices of staffs at DirectBuy are off limit to guest, and bathrooms are not.

I continue to challenge DirectBuy's right to impose a new rule that its showroom is off limit to guests without clear notification in its advertisement that it has unusual requirements beyond standard accepted practices. Also, if the showroom is off limit, then it would be unethical to use it as an advertising tool to entice unsuspecting consumers to visit DirectBuy.

The charge of “trespassing" is also a way to justify the belligerent behavior. I have not yet left its parking lot and went back to challenge the terms of the visit, all within a period of 3 minutes. Again, common societal rules of conduct would not call this a “trespassing". Instead of trying to understand my point of view for the challenge, he used “trespassing" as an excuse and ordered my removal by force. Both I and my wife have engaged in many debates, disputes and contests through our career. Challenges and counter challenges are ways our society uses to settle differences. We have won some disputes and lost others; but we have not yet met an opponent who would resort to violence to settle differences.

An apology from DirectBuy would be a respectable way to end a bad business practice.

My wife and I went to a DirectBuy warehouse tonight after being invited to attend an open house. The center manager was a really friendly and personable guy from Missouri (the show-me state). We both signed in, received a name badge and were introduced to our "host" who was the center manager's son-in-law. He interviewed us and we shared with him that we were remodeling and would be purchasing carpet, tile, windows, kitchen and bath appliances. He said DirectBuy would be able to save us money and seated us in a room with a TV monitor. There were two other couples in the room and the meeting started out with a seven minute informercial on what DirectBuy does - in short, they claim to save money by bypassing the local retailer and purchasing direct from manufacturer - the proposition sounds cool (emphasis on the word "sounds").

The center manager speaks for a while, shows us another video and then proceeds to show us a wall of products covered with post-it notes. Each product has two post-it notes with a suggested retail price shown and the DirectBuy price underneath. They showed us furniture, washing machines, pots and pans, vacuums, mattresses etc. The DirectBuy price offered averaged 20-50% less according to the center manager. BUT, I wrote down a few prices and the magic ended when I researched the first item, a 46" Sony Bravia - the manufacturer's retail price matched DirectBuy's example - MRP $2799 but the actual DirectBuy price of $2251 was still more than my local Circuit City's price, $2099. The second item was a 21.8 cu. ft. refrigerator - the manufacturer's retail price matched DirectBuy's example - MRP $2299 but the DirectBuy claimed price of $1419 was lower than the $1900 retail price shown on the internet. The third item was a Jacuzzi - we were particularly interested in that one since we had priced them two days ago at all the local retailers. DirectBuy's price of $1131 was blown away by Lowe's price of $974. [Note that we didn't know the prices on the TV and refrigerator at the time we were at DirectBuy's office but when we we did know the price of the Jacuzzi] Needless to say, the Jacuzzi sowed some seeds of doubt in the process. And it got worse from there...

After the price game, the TV was switched on again and we were treated with a list of DirectBuy member rules (if we were to join). "Be nice to retailers, don't leverage DirectBuy prices against retailers, blah blah blah and then we got to rule #6. Rule #6 is a slick sales tactic that says, You can only decide to join DirectBuy right now. If you said no today, then it was no forever. DirectBuy said it was to protect their retailers. . . you decide. Not good. But not the end of the world. Maybe they are committed to making me happy. So I asked, about their written Customer Satisfaction Policy - "What happens if I am unhappy with my DirectBuy membership". The answer was that they don't have a satisfaction policy as to your membership. However, they will replace a defective product (well, so will Sam's Club). In my mind, I am thinking - they want me to decide RIGHT NOW and they won't guarantee my happiness. Bummer, could it get any worse? The answer is yes because they finally revealed their membership fee - $4500 for two years. And guess what, they want the $4500 today. In DirectBuy's defense, they did offer 10% down and they would finance the rest with no satisfaction guarantee.

Additional fees revealed by DirectBuy in their example was a $110 delivery fee (based on $70-90 per hour delivery rates) and a "handling fee" which worked out to a little under 9% in their example. The concept of buying at cost is a compelling one - I really would like to buy at cost, but I also don't want to be taken advantage of. So, I figured out a win-win for this bad situation which I offered up to the DirectBuy sales team (the center manager and the son-in-law) I would generate a list of what I wanted to buy with dimensions, stock numbers etc. and they could give me an aggregate price (so they would not have to disclose confidential manufacturer prices). If their aggregate price justified the membership fee, I would join. Not only did they turn me down, but they started getting smartass and asked where I had priced out my Jacuzzi - I told them Lowe's and Home Depot and the son-in-law said, "that explains it - we can't compete against the big box home improvement retailer".

Well that's my experience - The handshake was good as was the soft drink (did I mention they had free soft drinks). And they started out by being very nice.

I would recommend checking them out for yourself ... maybe you will have as much fun as I did.