[masraum]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Yeah, the whole setup stinks. It borders on predatory.

The whole thing reminds me of when I was at the hardware store and a nice little old lady (seriously, someone's cute little grandma) asked me if I wanted a free (Pelican) replacement window estimate. Since I was going to replace the windows in my house anyway, I said sure. Guy wasted my entire evening and borderline threatened me - he got pissed at me! because it turned out I wasn't interested in having 25000-30000 dollars worth of premium windows installed in my mid-70's ranch home clad in T-111 siding. (This was about 10 years ago). (I ended up doing it myself with my brother helping for about 10% of his estimate with windows (Anderson) that were way more suitable for the house.)

~25 years ago, I was trying to get into IT work. I went to an interview at a hospital that was a 45-60 min drive away. The guy told me that I sounded good for entry level, but that something had come up in the budget and a hiring freeze had just started the day before and wasn't sure when/if he'd be able to hire me. He called me at home a day or two later and said that he had another opportunity for me that was "IT related" but not related to the hospital. He asked me to come up. I told him it was a long drive and said that I'd be willing to meet half-way. We met at a dinner. He started his pitch. Immediately, I knew that something was going on. I should have just left, but wasn't sure exactly what was going on and didn't want to burn bridges since he was potentially someone with a real job. I think I sat there for 45-60 mins. He never told me the name of the company until the very end. It was Amway. I remember many, many years ago, some friends of my parents had gotten roped into Amway and had pitched it to my parents.