I got your attention with those words, didn't I? Saving money or receiving news of a great way to make some fast bucks, always gets people's attention. How many times have you heard this line? "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Yet people are sucked in, or is that suckered into, unbelievable deals every day.
The internet has opened up all kinds of new scams to try and sucker us out of our money. I recently read that 96% of all e-mails are spam! I think everyone with an e-mail address has received an offer from a person in a foreign country, usually Nigeria, wanting us to be the recipient of millions of dollars. I received three offers this week. All I needed to do was send them my contact information and bank account number so they could deposit the money directly into my account. I had been selected to distribute millions of dollars to charities and I would keep twenty percent of the money for my help. Sounded like a great deal to me. I could always use an extra million bucks. Maybe some of you received the same generous offer. I'm never surprised when I hear that people are still falling for this scam. I think it was P.T. Barnum who said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
There are also fly-by-night businesses that rip people off. When we lived in Madison it wasn't unusual to hear about somebody being scammed by drive-by contractors who would see a house that needed a new roof or a driveway that needed repairs. They would stop and offer a reduced price to repair it. Oh by the way, they needed money down so they could go and buy the supplies. Once the money exchanged hands they never saw the person again.
In these days of economic problems, people are looking for ways to save some money. But what looks like a great money-saving deal, may end up costing them a lot more in the end.
I run into this a lot in my job, especially as money and competition for it gets tighter. Recently, I received an offer for TV service at an unbelievably low price. I wondered how the company could offer that price without "selling the farm." Most people never read the fine print in an offer. I make it a point to always go over all the fine print. When the fine print in this offer was magnified large enough to read, it filled an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. That offer that sounded too good to be true, was just that. I discovered that if I signed a contract with the company I'd end up being bumped up to the Cadillac Package after the six-month offer ended. I wouldn't have a choice because I'd be locked into a two-year contract.
The next eighteen months would cost five times as much. In the end, I'd pay a lot more over the two-year period than the service I have now. Plus, I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars in cancellation fees to get out of the contract if I didn't like the service. It pays to read the fine print and not get suckered in.
However, cheap introductory offers in any type of business, often blind people to the total cost, and they seldom read the fine print.
Whenever I can, I like to support local businesses. When we bought appliances for our house, we went to a local business, rather than a big box, national store. Could we have saved a few dollars by going the big box route? Maybe. But we received great personal service from people we can trust. If something goes wrong, I know we can get help without getting the run-around.
Many things have changed. We live in a much different world today. It's getting harder to find local businesses that are family owned and operated. Too often we're dealing with a local outlet of a national company. It's pretty hard to walk into their headquarters and talk with someone if you have a problem. I remember when I had a phone/computer problem in Madison. Even though it was a large company with a "so-called local office," I ended up talking with a woman I could hardly understand. I asked her where she was located. "Malaysia," she replied. When I tried changing my TV service I talked with a woman in India. She scheduled a "local" appointment. They never showed up. I tried for two days to get service and finally called the :local" Madison number and got a man in India. I told him to forget it. I didn't want their so-called "Local" service.
Another advantage of doing business locally is money stays in the community and is used over and over again, to the benefit of many within the area. Those local friends and neighbors aren't going to offer you a deal "to good to be true." They don't want their offer to take a big bite out of your pocketbook later, and make you an irate, unhappy customer. They want you to keep coming back.
The bottom line is, read the fine print, ask questions, and if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Above all, whenever possible, do business with local people you know and can trust.
No comments:
Post a Comment