I just found this video that I took the beautiful Spring day that we first had our Backyard Discovery playset installed. The girls ran from the living room, which faces our front yard, to see the pieces being taken off the truck… then back to our family room, which faces the backyard, and gives a perfect view of the playset. Over and over. I couldn’t keep up with them! The excitement was palpable.
Now I’m thinking… what if that had never happened? What if I had purchased a playset from another vendor, and the girls had sat there looking out the window, waiting for a playset that never came?
This is what has happened to several unfortunate families that thought they were getting an amazing deal on a playset, when they were actually getting ripped off. And that just breaks my heart! I’m not going to go into details, but you can read about a recent scam here, and at Ripoff Report.
My advice? Buy from a reputable company. Reliable retailers include Toys “R” Us, Sam’s Club, Costco, BJ’s, Walmart, Lowes, and Target. Many times they’ll even offer free shipping! OR save yourself all the trouble and buy directly from swingsetsonline.com! And no, they didn’t ask me to say that. 😉
If you buy from a smaller vendor, do your homework!
- If the deal sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
- Don’t follow links from Craigslist.
- Look them up at www.bbb.org (the Better Business Bureau).
- You could even go as far as looking up their domain at whois.net, to see how long their website has been around.
- Are they on Twitter and Facebook? Check out what their followers have to say about them.
- If the company asks you to pay by money order or a cashier’s check, that should be a BIG red flag. Pay only by credit card, so you can challenge the charge if necessary.
My PSA for the day! Back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Disclosure: As part of an ongoing relationship, Backyard Discovery provided my family with the wooden playset pictured above, and will be covering my BlogHer ’10 conference expenses.
