Vacuum Scam Solved For 80-year-old Cape Coral Woman

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Uploaded by on Jun 10, 2010

It didn't look good for 80-year-old Annette Theilman. Just minutes after buying a new Kirby vacuum last week, she began to regret her decision. Why did she need a 30lb, professional-grade vacuum? She can barely walk.

Meanwhile, the door-to-door salesman who sold her the vacuum told Annette she had only three days to cancel her purchase. The problem was he was totally off the radar for four days. And only then did he tell her she needed to mail a letter confirming the cancellation. I wanted the official word from Kirby's local distributor.

There were some details that weren't really adding up to the story, specifically regarding the salesman. What exactly was his background? I wanted to find out, so I went to talk to the owner of American Eagle - it's where the salesman works out of -- to get some answers.

That's where I met John Joyce. He runs American Eagle in Fort Myers, and serves as the local distributor for Kirby. He said the representative who made the sale to Annette was fired two days ago in part because of this incident

It turns out that representative worked at American Eagle in Fort Myers for a year.

He knew all about Kirby's business policies - and he certainly knew Annette had more than three days to make her decision. Yet the he got angry when Theilman's daughter said her mother didn't want the vacuum. Under pressure, Brandy insisted the sale was final.

I got on the phone with his company after hearing from a viewer about a 'Golden Ager' policy offered by Kirby. It allows anyone over 67 to return a product within a year of making the purchase.

The people at Kirby Headquarters weren't happy when they heard what I had to say. They immediately called American Eagle to get things sorted out. I wanted to check up to make sure things were being resolved.

"Now that we've been made aware of it, we've cancelled out her order and she'll receive a full refund," John Joyce of American Eagle said.

I reminded John that his office had turned Annette down for a refund just a few days before.

"She contacted the representative," he replied. "She did not contact us or the parent company. If they would have done that first then it would have already been cleared up and handled."

I knew Annette would be excited to hear the news. I immediately went to her house to let her know. I got Kirby Headquarters on the line, and let them explain.

That's when Annette realized this nightmare was coming to an end. I helped get the Kirby phone representative all the information to process Annette's cancellation.

But there was still one thing I wanted to clear up.

Annette wanted to give the salesman a tip, so she gave him the only thing she had: $100 bill. The salesman said he would bring back change, but he never did. She gave billy a hundred bucks and said, "look, I wanna tip you. This is all I have in the house. Bring me the change."

John Joyce wanted to resolve that point. He told me "The first we heard about that was through the grapevine off of your report. Unfortunately, why somebody would give cash like that... What we know of is on the receipt and that was processed. With that now, even though he has been let go, he does have some money on the books that oughta be comin' to him. And if that's the case, that'll be returned to her.

Case solved.

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  • @travco187 she had have to been at least a b load lol

  • @mucura1 douche

  • Ah ha ha ha ha!!!! Kirby loses again! These scammers belong in prison!

  • Am glad that lady won that kirby company. They could all go to hell and stick there foot up there ass

  • That's nothing, you should see how they treat their employees. I just quite after learning that the Kirby distributor that just hired me lied about my wages, position and even the company I work for. They have us believe that we are not doing door to door sales, until our first day of work. They were recently cited for a number of things, ranging from Child labor, withheld wages, failure to follow work hour regulations, and even retaliation when employees went to authorities.

  • yea go for change it like that? guess how many people u r putting out of work, so i hope u dont mind looseing ur job for everyone u just had put out of a job.. kirby does have some flaws but every company does the only difference if kirby is putting out a hella lot more jobs then u think

  • If I were in charge of Kirby I'd totally change how they do business! I think that they're wonderful vacuums but they have a negative image with scandals like this. They need to advertise on TV and magazines like normal people would. They should sell them at stores instead of door to door. Let people decide for themselves instead of taking advantage of elderly people.

  • in Sweden they`re trying to sell them for 5600 dollars and stupid peopel are bying them its sick

  • @travco187 I could afford a kirby......i just chose not to pay 2000 dollars for a 200 dollar vacuum. You probably are a kirby wholesaler.........CRY MOAR BITCH!

  • fukin broke ass bad credit bitch

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