Kirby Vacuum I want to tell you ignorant people the truth about Kirby, it is an AMAZING GOOD product and there are PLENTY of honest salesmen out there Naugutuck Connecticut

Maintenance is required on a Kirby just like a car.  Isold a Kirby to a lady with long haired dogs in the house and she had long hair herself.  I told her that she would need to clean the brushroller often and showed her how to do it.  Also told her to make sure she changed the bag and belt often to keep it running to its maximm effeciency.  When I checked with her later she said it didn't work well.  Bag was full and brushroller had hair wound all over it.  She didn't listen.

When I sold Kirbys I EARNED two of those free vacations (called 100% Club) which were offered every quarter if one made 15 or more sales per month for the three month in that quarter.  They were in nice places with nice hotels and in addition to all the expenses being paid (travel, hotel), we were given some spending money.  Everyone in my immediate family was able to go, which meant my mother and sister on the first one (South Padre Island) since I wasnt married, and my wife (Austin) after I was married.  So yes, the free trips were real.  But notice I said I EARNED them.

So the original poster is stupid just because he mispelled a word???  Really???  

My grandmother, my mother, and now I own a Kirby.  It's far and away the best vacuum sold in the United States.  Yes it's expensive, but so are most quality items.

As a 22 year Kirby vacuum repair man it sounds like you do not know how to operate the Kirby correctly. Lowering the front head down to low or all the way will cause the belts to burn up and the roller brush to wear out. So you are the one who isn't smart enough to operate a vacuum and then rather than blaming yourself you blame the vacuum. Typical, I see people like you everyday.

Seriously, before you pass judgement on another person's grammar and sentence mechanics, please be sure that your grammar structure is sound and flawless; you appear foolish otherwise. Secondly, before you assassinate the character and ethics of a company and its associates, please ascertain the facts, and communicate them in a manner that doesn't render your generalized statements null and void; again, you appear foolish.

Do all of those who think Kirby is a scam you need to do a little more research before you proceed to spit vile lies, misinformation or half-truths on the internet. I am a Kirby salesman have have made a ton of money with this company. The most I made on a week is about 3500. Did I get slammed because I didn't make 4000? The trio's are for real too. My first month I won an all expenses paid trip to Arlington, Texas. I got a suite in a nice hotel, got to go to 6 Flags and see a Texas Rangers game. This month I won a trip to Atlantic City. Was I slammed again? I have a friend who won a 2011 Camero. Was he scammed because he didn't win a Corvette? A lot of the people who get on here and say Kirby is a scam are ex employees. Ones who no longer work for Kirby because they couldn't sell. If you don't sell you don't get paid. They are up front about this. There is no deception. I'm a month away from opening my own Kirby office. Hmmm....a scam that is basically giving me my own franchise. With all that said I'm not saying that you can't find shady Kirby salesman or shady Kirby Distributors but you will find shady people in everything. There are Christian preachers and Catholic priests that molest children but does that mean you condemn the entire faith? An idiot might. Lastly, Kirby is the best d**n vacuum on the market and worth every penny. Show me a vacuum that has more suction power. That lasts as long. Yes the Kirby may be a little heavier (but is easy to push due to the Tec-Drive) but ask yourself this. What is more important.....getting something light or getting something that actually cleans?

YES people were stupid to buy from you I  dealt with kirby  but never again when people see a kirby sales men  tell them no thank. they still have not giving me my vac back that used for a trade that was last week they are rude iam glad I canceled my contract with them also they charge for a new cleaner

when it used so stay away from kirby and also filing a complaint with the BBB

Hi Everybody!

I would like to share my experience with Kirby Vacuum.

I first heard about the job on Craigslist, the job was very vague, and said something about receptionist, so I thought I would check it out.They scheduled me for an interview, and they explained the different job openings they had.

They told me how much I could make as a receptionist, and then they showed me how much I could make cleaning carpets.
I CHOSE the cleaning carpets myself, because I wanted to make more money to get out of debt.I went to orientation Wednesday, listened to the distributer talk about the company,and I was impressed. 

He told us we don't have to worry about trying to sell them all because we are new, we just have to show the people the vacuum, and he will close the sales for us, he told us he is a very good salesmen, and he will close all of the sales, he just needs us to do a good job showing the customers the vacuum :)

Well I was in orientation Wednesday through Friday. (Not paid, and he told us we wouldn't be getting paid)  I was okay with that. I really wanted to learn how to make all this money, so I stuck with it.  

Saturday I got to take the vacuum home, and practice doing demonstrations at my families house, and friends house.  They all fell in love with the vacuum, so I got to sell a few,and got some cool bonuses :)  Like a free gift certificate, and cash!  Plus whatever I made on the 2 vacuums. lol.


Then Monday came around, our first day of real work.


It was definitely different, it isnt your average job. Me the owner, and 3 other people all got into the van, and we drove 45 minutes to a small town, and the owner got us all into our own houses, on the spot.  When I got there, I was kind of nervous, but tried not to show it.  I cleaned the carpet for the old couple, and explained to them, the different tools, and showed them all the dirt.  I was trying to be friendly, and nice, then after  2 hours the owner came, and talked to the customers, and they bought it!  I sold my first vacuum, and I was so proud of myself, the negotiated the price a little bit, because they were seniors, but yeah!  I was very proud of myself.

This is how we got paid, if you sell 3 Kirby's a week, you get $300.00 guaranteed.  Plus you get money from each Kirby you sold! So if I only sold 2 Kirby's for $1,500.00 and the other for $1,115.00 then my paycheck would of been $300.00 :)  Because I got Half of over $1000.00 So anything over $1000.00 would be split in half with my boss. 

Well, I kept working, and putting in a lot of hours, I was very dedicated, and made good money.  The only problem I had with the job was that I didnt have enough time to see my boyfriend, so I had to quit.  We were working sometimes until 10 o clock at night, and I had no social life. :( 

If I was single, I would definitely still be there, because I made very easy money.  All I had to do was be nice to people, show them how good the vacuum worked, show them the dirt, and they wanted it!   

I don't know why people on here are complaining.  I am sure there are a lot of businesses out there that are not running it the way they are supposed to, but that doesn't mean that EVERY Kirby business is bad.  It doesn't mean that every person that sells Kirby products is a bad person.

I don't have any criminal backround, but I do see a lot of people that have had simple misdemeanors that are hired, and there isnt anything wrong with that.

Kirby has a law, where they CANNOT hire anyone that has a felony.  You can call them and ask.

They will NOT hire a felon, they do backround checks.   Maybe in the past someone did hire  a felon, but now if they do that, they will get their business shut down. 

There was a point in time where I made over $1000.00 a week.

This isnt a regular job.  You have a chance to run your OWN company with this job, you have the opportunity to make A LOT of money.  It just depends how MOTIVATED you are, and how much TIME you have to invest in this.  

If you sell a Kirby you WILL make profits of each one.  

i really have enjoyed reading all these, but i don't like to re-butt, but to the man who bought it online, these are used vacuums from vac shops and they are not affiliated with the Kirby company at all, there is no warranty and it could be stolen the only way to purchase a genuine Kirby is through a in home demonstration, it says right on the box for direct sale to user and any other sale is strictly prohibited, as to everyone else this is a negative site where negative people go, you notice when some one trys to say some things positive they are attacked and called names, so don't waste your time arguing with stupid people, just like there is a bbb for companys,  the should be a place to file bad customers, lol, well attack me, peace out

dave p

dealer and non-criminal, hehe

Let me tell you, that I love my Kirby. Great product. However, price is way to high. I had a friend who worked for distributor in Illinois. He mentioned that his boss gets Kirbys from the factory for $450. When salesman knocked on my door I let him do the demo. Everything was fine, but when we sat at the kitchen table and I told him that I have to think about it, that's where the fun part began. He was telling me about his contest and calling his boss, trying to get me a better deal. So price went down by couple of hundred of dollars, but it was still to expensive. So i went on line and found quite a few websites selling newes Kirby models for a fraction of what he was considering to be a great deal. He got all upset and left. I did expect him to call me and offer me a better deal, like car dealers do, but it didn't happen. So I  went on line, did my research and bought the same Kirby for $600.00 on www.goodvac.com, compare to what salesman was offering as a great deal at $1900.00. Got my Kirby in original packaging and couldn't find any indication that it was used.  I think in this economy it pays to do some research.

Darius A.

Charles, USE SPELL CHECK ! Check grammer,sentense structure ect.
 Each time you type....

 Otherwise you look like a foolish a**

You send things like.......
"
I am a 4 month old Kirby Salesman working out of Naugutuck connecticut......"


WOW you people up north start work young !


Charles, all the rest was irrelevant, as I was far to busy dying in laughter.

Try to keep your emotions out of it as well....Not a strong seller...Stick to the facts and support them with proof.


Now go have milk,cookies and take a nap

We bought a Kirby vacuum about 16 years ago and aside from the bags, we haven't have to buy or replace anything on it.  Yes, it's heavy but you'd have to be an idiot not to know that considering you try it during the demonstration.  It's your own fault for "not knowing" how heavy it is.  I have no complaints about it and after almost 20 years, it's still works extremely well. 

I won't reprint the rebuttal here but do ask you to please just have a look at it. I really do address many of these issues in it and I try to see this from all sides. I hope I've done that.

Here, I just wanted to comment that I don't think I was "brain-washed" to stay with the company for seven years but I definitely paid my dues. I had great months of earning $8k/$9k (even a had an $8k week once in 1998 and took the rest of the month off) and I also had months of earning a mere few hundred dollars and in my first month of business I made a whopping $250.00 after my first sale from 3 weeks of effort.

I don't like the fact that so many distributors are so "secretive" with their new dealers. With "training pay" and paying people to do the demos. When you start working with a distributorship, you are made aware up front that this is a 1099 position, you're an Independent Dealer NOT an employee. I found for me that when I did a lot of demos, I made a lot of sales and in turn, a lot of money. Conversely, when I was lazy and didn't work very much and took three or four days off every week, I didn't have as many opportunities to make sales and my bank account reflected my efforts.

I am a firm believer that no business will ever "work for" anyone and that if you want to be successful you need to work for it. For your OWN success. You have to work for it no matter what business you're in. If you want the safety of a J.O.B. than by all means, go do it. A business like Kirby involves a great deal of risk to be sure. There is no safety-net, no insurance benefits and you're solely responsible for all of your own taxes. This risk can lead to great failure and sometimes to great reward. But there are a ton of expenses racked up having to put miles on the car, paying for your own gas, buying private medical insurance and all the other costs of owning your own business. Having a $5k week is great but what about all the weeks where I didn't have that kind of result? I still had the bills that needed to be paid.

I eventually left the business and am now working in a J.O.B. with a company taking my taxes out of my checks and getting company-paid insurance and yes, since I have much lower risk, I also have much lower income. I have a J.O.B. which stands for Just Over Broke. I'm just not willing at my age, to take the risks that I did when I sold Kirby.

There are greedy and dishonest distributors in this kind of a business but it is NOT anymore of a MLM as working for any other company. In fact, it's less of one because the amount of effort you put in has a tendency to commensurate the "sweat-equity" more fairly but in a J.O.B. you pretty much know what you'll be paid check to check. It doesn't mean that Kirby is evil, it just means it's a much riskier type of business and is not likely to be as predictable as collecting a wage or salary from an employer.

There will always be horror stories to regale us all on this and many other sites primarily because the distributors generally are afraid to tell you what the business is all about when you first start. If they just told you what it was when you walked in, most of you would turn right around and walk out but at least we'd have less of these types of complaints.

To all of you, I sincerely hope for your success in whatever business or work you take on. Just remember, you will never get rich settling for mediocrity. I personally don't think that's brainwashing but the basic fundamental of capitalistic society. I have yet to meet a millionaire who became that way by doing what everyone else did. But I have met plenty who have taken big risks and worked for success rather than waiting for success to work for them.

Also, just as an aside. I hope that you can separate the Kirby product from the Kirby business. Door-to-door sales is really going the way of the cathode ray tube and newspapers. It served a purpose a long time ago but technology and the Internet has almost killed it and people who have worked in the business for years and have become wealthy from it, don't want to face the reality that they are almost obsolete.
I believe the Scott Fetzer Company (who owns the Kirby Company) already has begun to admit this fact and it probably won't be long before Kirby Distributors will most likely disappear. From a consumer stand-point, that will be great news (as regarding price) however, the quality of ownership will fall as well since you won't really know and fully understand just how powerful this machine is and all the cool stuff you can do with it.

Be well,
Peace!

Not_a_sucker in Lewistown- Your entry was about someone who cannot spell or use proper English....did you read your own entry?  I suggest you re read it before you suggest someone cannot spell.  Also, where is your "fact" that Kirby Vacuums associate with criminals?  Would it be fair for me to say that everyone from Lewistown is illiterate?  Don't assume that everyone who has worked with Kirby is a criminal.  I won't assume that you never completed 4th grade english

The OP can't even spell and don't know how to use "your" vs. "you're", "their" vs. "there" and he is a manager for this company.  This alone should be a flash warning that Kirby as company hire uneducated people.  Is there anyone here who would like to do business with uneducated people with high reputation for being scammers? Do not let a Kirby Vacuum suck you out of your money. 

A Kirby distributor reps were in town last night and I had the unfortunate luck of having the unpleasant interaction with them.  To make my story short, I called the cops to report these scammers and contacted my city manager whom these scammers got a city permit to conduct their business in town.  The city manager immediately authorized the investigating officer to revoke the license from these scammers.   

DO NOT LET ANY KIRBY REP IN YOUR TOWN!   Call the police immediately and contact your city manager to rid of these people. 

To Kirby as a company, you better change your marketing style because its infested with criminals.  I don't care how good your product is but if you're employing or associating your name with unethical people, I'd rather see your company go broke. 

It doesn't matter how lazy you are. The job is a scam. No one wants to go into work at 9 am, sit around for 2 hours, sing stupid songs, then then go knocking on doors in crappy weather. Bottom line, you cannot be a Kirby salesman and have morals. Every distributor is a lying sack of crap. All the people who work there most likely have police records a mile long, so it would be the only thing they can get. If you like getting cheated out of your pay, then go work for them. As for you, I would say you are an idiot. I dont think people would be posting bad experiences with Kirby on here if it was not true. Then again, I guess we are all liars, and Kirby is a great compant, right?

If the guy who invented the vacuum could see the tactics at which his product was being sold right now, he would be spinning in his grave. Go spew your garbage somewhere else.

Why do all Kirby Sales Associates seem to get blasted based on their experiences.  Just as there are plenty of "shady Kirby salespeople", there are also plenty of legitimate salespeople who are trying to make a buck.  The product is good (if you appreciate the concept of value over time) but definately it is not for everybody.  I sold Kirbys for three months and realized that it was not a viable career path for me (I was also on summer break from college).  I made this decision not because I was lazy or didn't want to work hard (as some current Kirby sales associates cite on this board).  I just did not enjoy going to door to door.  The owner of the branch treated me fairly and I earned upwards of $500.00 - $600.00 dependent on the sale price of the Kirby.  If I sold just one Kirby at full price per week, I was making more than most of my friends working other summer jobs.  The owner also ran appointmewnts with newer reps and compensated them for sales he made.  In the three months I was there, I never saw or heard of any complaints from customers.  We were taught to use the "emotional sell"  but never to lie or deceive any customer.  I do believe that my managers and owner were more than above board as compared to their counterparts in the industry.  But the same can be said about any industry....have you ever felt scammed by a car salesman?  What about an auto-mechanic?  Whenever there is money to be made, there is always the possibility of having "shady salespeople".  I just do not think it is fair to paint with a broad brush regarding every Kirby salesperson.

I am sure you have many happy "costumers." Is that the same as customers? I would say you really are a Kirby salesmen. Most people who work at those places are as dumb as a box of hair. You certainly proved it. Do us all a favor, and shut up. Take your scamming company and go somewhere else.

Charles, just wondering did your kirby boss offer you a free vacation to post the lies that you posted? you cannot be a succesful kirby salesman if you have good morals and honesty.

In 1963 my mother bought a Kerby vacuum, the cost was $500.00. A lot of money for 1963. But mom just had too have this Kirby.

Around 1975, Mom passed this Kirby on too ME !!! I used this Kirby forever. One day it started to blow dust, and my HEART was broken. Luckly I lived across the street from a Kirby Shop. I had to replace the dust cover and a new belt. Cost me $30.00. !!! But..... My Kerby was working again.

In 1998 it came time to retire the old Kirby. What too do ?? My Heart was Broken again. How could I part with my BELOVED Kirby ??

I traded my BELOVED Kirby in for a NEW Kirby 4. My only regret is that I did not keep my BELOVED Kirby for the Sentmential Value it had held for me all those years.

I miss my BELOVED kirby, But I will never have to replace the new Kirby 4. It will out live me.


Always a Kirby Lover

A Kirby does not last forever! I bought one when my husband and I were first married. It does NOT last forever, I had to keep replacing brushes and the belt broke constantly. It is HEAVY and 21 pouds for someone who is disabled like myself is WAY OVER my limit for what I can PUSH. So NO I am sorry , it did not last forever and I kept getting calls from KIRBY sales people who would say to me ," Nothing lasts forever, NOT even a Kirby"!

and you know what? That was the one thing they were RIGHT about!