DirectBuy review: everything sucks

My husband and I got dooped into joining Direct Buy about 1 year ago. They kiss your butt during those orientations, offering you drinks and making you a bunch of promises. Once you shell out the joiners fee (which is absolutely ridiculous, in retrospect), all of the help and hospitality goes right out the window.

We can barely get help when we make the drive out to the center...heaven forbid we ask for someone to return a phone call!

We live about 2 hours away from our local Direct Buy, but were promised it would be worth our drive. HAHAHAHAHA! We were also promised there was no shipping on goods, unless we decided to have them shipped to our home. HAHAHAHA! They failed to mention that the manufacturer, not Direct Buy, will charge you "frieght" on all weighted items if they choose...i. e- we ordered a $300 bed from Ashley Furniture...we paid almost $600 by the time they added freight...AAAANNND we had to drive 2 hours into the dregs of PIttsburgh to pick it at some crummy warehouse on a deserted, creepy street. I ordered a table at the end of April which is still not in and it is now mid June. Best part is, once the item comes in you only have 2 days to pick it up or they start charging you a storage fee.

Our worst experience, however, is our countertops. We were told at the orientation that countertops take 2 weeks to come in. They even made a big stink about making sure our cabinets were ready for those counters because they will be installed in 2 weeks and they won't wait for us. We placed our order for Silestone counters on 04/10/10. It is not 06/17/10 and I still have not heard ANYTHING about the counters. I keep calling the center and never get a returned phone call. You have to pay for all of your goods up front, so we shelled out almost 4, 000 and can't even get a returned phone call?! We also ordered a butcher block top for our island on the same day we ordered the silestone. That was finally installed on 06/15/10, However, when the guy from the manufacturer came to measure for installation (he did a great job, you can tell he wasn't a Direct Buy employee), he brought to our attention that Direct Buy charged us for a much larger top than we needed. I called to ask about it and they said once the purchase was complete they would see about trying to get us a refund on a credit card. We paid with a freaking check, but we can get a credit refund? REally? I called and left a message this morning threatening legal action and my husband called and talked to a manager. They are supposed to get back to us by the end of this week...won't hold my breath. In the meantime, they have $4, 000 cash of ours tied up that we cannot use to go purchase counters from a reputable, trustworthy seller. Not to mention, they still owe us the money from the overpayment of the butcher block. We are building a house and Direct Buy has us way behind schedule.

To sum it up, Direct Buy employees are liars, frauds and cheats. You pay waaaay to much to join this this group (almost 6 grand) and you get stress and headaches in return. This is, by far, the worst experience that I as a consumer have had. They suck! Don't buy into their schemes!