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No labor/installation costs for new windows for house-> Scam?

JEDI

JEDI

Lifer
saw this ad in my neighborhood:
- Our company is looking for 2 homes in every 5 mile radius in this area and surrounding cities.
- In exchange, we put a small sign in your yard for 30 days plus before and after pictures of the windows to help us with our advertising
- we will absorb all labor and installation costs plus take an additional 30% off retail end of window.
- You will get the whole project installed at over 50% off.
- They come with a 50 year lifetime warranty.
- 100% financing available and can defer payments for up to one year.
- We have an A+ rating with the BBB and we're a preferred member of Angie's list.

Company is LEI Home Enhancements but none of the BBB listings are in my state?
https://www.bbb.org/en/us/search?find_text=LEI+Home+Enhancements&page=1

Scam?
 
Of course it is. "We're looking for x people" is always a scam. They're really looking for as many people as they can get without any limit.

In this case the scam is that before all the discounts are applied the "list price" of the windows is 2-3 times as high as it should be. The installation costs and discounts are all priced into the materials cost.
 
JEDI said:
saw this ad in my neighborhood:
- Our company is looking for 2 homes in every 5 mile radius in this area and surrounding cities.
- In exchange, we put a small sign in your yard for 30 days plus before and after pictures of the windows to help us with our advertising
- we will absorb all labor and installation costs plus take an additional 30% off retail end of window.
- You will get the whole project installed at over 50% off.
- They come with a 50 year lifetime warranty.
- 100% financing available and can defer payments for up to one year.
- We have an A+ rating with the BBB and we're a preferred member of Angie's list.

Company is LEI Home Enhancements but none of the BBB listings are in my state?
https://www.bbb.org/en/us/search?find_text=LEI+Home+Enhancements&page=1

Scam?
Click to expand...
They may be trying to move into a new area or franchise. If you're interested, call the company and ask? It appears to be a real company that operates in many states.

https://www.leihomeenhancements.com/about-us/ (scroll to the bottom)
 
LikeLinus said:
They may be trying to move into a new area or franchise. If you're interested, call the company and ask? It appears to be a real company that operates in many states.

https://www.leihomeenhancements.com/about-us/ (scroll to the bottom)
Click to expand...

It's probably a real company, the scam is just in using "we want a few selected people" as an old-as-dirt advertising gimmick.

You think you're getting a special deal, but if you say no after getting your quote in writing you'll find that other companies in the area will do the same job with comparable materials for the same price or less.

If anyone bites on this, realize that "special offer, you must sign now or lose your special spot!" is another old-as-dirt high pressure sales tactic. It's to stop you from getting quotes from any other companies, and to keep you from carefully reading the fine print that might mention additional fees missing from the large print.

If they won't let you take home an offer in writing and get back to them within a few days, they are trying to sell you a bad deal, even if they then deliver an OK but overpriced product.
 
'Scam' is a strong word to throw around when a real company delivers a real product at an agreed upon price.

Viper GTS
 
Reminds me of a solicitor I fell for when I first moved into my house. It was for a home security system. He came by pushing similar terminology about selecting 3 people from my street. Free installation, pays for itself, just put a sign in your yard, act now, etc. He pointed out the other two he already sold to. $60 a month. I was broke, but the thought of adding value to the new home I just bought got me. 10 minutes after he left, two other guys came in and installed it all zippity quick and showed me how to use it.

Within the next day I regretted the whole thing. There was no way I could afford it at that time. I found that NY has a law specifically for purchases made under "high-pressure sales tactics". Within it there's a section about voiding a contract within 3 days of signing. So I took advantage of that. The guy who sold it to me (not the installers) came and took everything out and patched up the holes for me. Kind of an embarrassing situation all around for him and me. Now I just don't answer the door.
 
It all comes down to one point, YOU NEED TO KNOW THE PRICES, don't matter what you are buying.
 
I'm looking to replace all the Windows in my house. So far I have 5 quotes all ranging from $12,000 to $15,000. Some were normal quotes. One quote was "free windows" just pay for installation. One quote was "free installation" just pay for the windows. In the end, neither of those specials were special at all as the final quote came out to be the same.
 
Viper GTS said:
I see what you did there. I won't call your business a scam, but a whole bunch of your competitors are predatory as all fuck. Hopefully you are the exception to that (and I have seen signs that you may have a soul).

Viper GTS
Click to expand...
😀 My wife redeemed part of it.
 
Plus, the "we will absorb all labor and installation costs " just means that the windows are priced to include the labor... it sounds like a better deal than it might otherwise be.
 
We had our windows done through Costco. The contractor company they hired did a poor job and we complained and left bad reviews. They had to send some different guys who spent several days fixing the issues, we ended up getting free garden window and a free slider and costco took 33% off the final bill(the house had 24 windows not including the slider and the garden windows so it was a substantial bill). Final job was excellent and it was super cheap. Sometimes failure can end in success. Of course Costco quit doing windows soon after...
 
They also know most people don't have 10-15 grand laying around and they will offer you financing. This will be at 16-25% interest rate. So they will make another few grand off of that.
 
Most of the replacement window company's pay their people by the job, they get x amount per window. There is no incentive to do a good job, and virtually every installation I've seen was just good enough to get paid. I've also looked at quite a few that have failed. The failures are always because the installer used the cheapest sealant he could get. On a replacement window, the caulking is the entire waterproof seal around the window. When the caulking fails, the window leaks. A lot of installers actually use acceptable sealants that have a 20 year warranty, but that's only if the sealant is protected from sunlight. High quality sealants add about $5 per window to the material cost, if you have 20 windows in your house then installer can make an extra $100 by using crappy materials.
 
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