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Ever fall for an Infomercial?

TheBobcat

TheBobcat

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 1, 2006
351
0
East Lansing, Michigan
I stay up late a lot since I'm in college and stuff, and I see a lot of infomercials. I was watching one for the Oreck XL 21 Vacuum, and to be honest, I almost bought one. There was a free gift too!

Ever actually buy anything of one of those?
 
It's how I learned about Oxi-Clean. Yeah, you feel a bit of the gullible moron, but y'know, the stuff really does exactly what it's claimed to.

Orecks are pretty ubiquitous in the lodging industry, so it's a reliable brand. Why they have to resort to those cheesy infomercials is beyond me. The same for the "Little Giant" ladder.

Ron Popeil is my heeero! :p
 
My wife and I were out one night on a good session and when we came home at about 3 in the morning, somewhat under the weather, we decided to cook some food (as you do). We put on the tv while we were waiting, and she just had to have this wonderful exercise machine that she saw on some infomercial. It was £140 plus the obligatory postage and packing. So we ordered it by phone immediately and promptly forgot about it until about 3 weeks later this thing turned up on our door, much to our surprise.

She used it about 3 times, and then gave it to her sister who ended up using it to dry towels. But to make matters worse, I happened to notice the same piece of equipment in a local shop - the price £30 :mad:

Now the tv stays off when we get home.
 
TheBobcat said:
I stay up late a lot since I'm in college and stuff, and I see a lot of infomercials. I was watching one for the Oreck XL 21 Vacuum, and to be honest, I almost bought one. There was a free gift too!

Ever actually buy anything of one of those?
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LOL.. This reminds me of something that happened to my mom..

A vacuum sale woman (well actually there were two of them) showed up at out house one afternoon. They were selling Kurby vacuums. My mom listened to their spill and then they asked if it was ok to perform a demonstration.. she agrees and they ask for our current vacuum to show the difference between the two.

The woman made a few passes with our vacuum on our living room carpet. Then she put a new bag in the Kurby they were trying to sell her and made a few passes with it over the same area she had just vacuumed with our current carpet sucker. After that she took the bag out and show my mother what the Kurby picked up that ours left behind. My mom was sold and spent about 3k on the vacuum and attachments..

After it was said and done and the sales people left.. I went up to my mom and said to her. You probly could have replaced all the carpet in that room for what you just paid to clean it hahahaha.
 
Sort of. The Magic Bullet.

We got one for our wedding, and it really is pretty cool. I've only seen them on the infomercials, so by proxy we bought in to it.

EDIT: This is what I get for typing and then going to take a shower and watching the baby and eating breakfast before hitting submit reply - trust me puckhead, it's worth every penny
 
macmama said:
Not a dedicated infomercial, but I'm a sucker for QVC, which is pretty much the same thing, just live.
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Jesus.. My grandma is insane when it come to QVC and HSN.. Every time I talk to her on the phone I can hear it going in the background. Then I have to go over to her house about twice a month to take care of all the shipping boxes that collect lol.
 
I have a set of exercise DVDs from an infomercial that I do use occasionally - mostly in the winter when it's too cold to walk or rollerblade outdoors.

I love watching QVC when Wolfgang Puck is cooking stuff - so far I've resisted buying any of his "signature" cooking line, but I'm always tempted.
 
when i was in high school and had moderate acne, i ordered that stupid pro-activ stuff. it worked for about 2 months, then i guess my skin got used to it and it didn't really do any better than normal face wash.

the best part is last year, two months before my wedding, i ordered it again just so i could have flawless skin for my big day. the week after the wedding, i called and canceled my "membership" in the pro-activ club. :)
 
mantic said:
Jesus.. My grandma is insane when it come to QVC and HSN..
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I believe it. A friend of mine got me hooked as kind of a campy thing. But the people who call in to the testimonial line and have their favorite hosts that they never miss are more hardcore than I am. I only dabble in QVC-watching.

Though I did recently buy this and this. *hides*
 
macmama said:
I believe it. A friend of mine got me hooked as kind of a campy thing. But the people who call in to the testimonial line and have their favorite hosts that they never miss are more hardcore than I am. I only dabble in QVC-watching.

Though I did recently buy this and this. *hides*
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lol.. It's just crazy.. she has a whole room just full of crap that she'll never use and it just keeps growing.
 
i've always been a night owl, and one of the first infomercials i ever saw was for ron popeil's food dehydrator. i was instantly sold on it when he made fruit rollups! fortunately (unfortunately?), i was only nine at the time and couldn't order one. but if i could, i'd be one dehydrator richer today. :)
 
I have not, but my parents have one of those vacuum food sealers and a dehydrator. The sealer they use, the dehydrator was a waste of money. Shortly I will be assembling a pilates chair thingy:confused: for my mom.
 
puckhead193 said:
if i get an apartment next year i want the magic bullet to make drinks...not gonna lie. :D
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I bought that and I swear it is the best thing ever. Seeing how I bought it when I started a diet plan and lost an entire person, the bullet it my favorite household item ever.
I don't know what I'd do without it now.
 
Bought the Magic Bullet, but ended up returning it because the portions you could make with it were too small. It had very limited use outside of making powershakes.

Instead, I bought a Vita-Mix Deluxe 5000 and love it.

Although I don't buy much stuff off infomercials, I was conned into buying those Ginzu knives and super-chammies. I almost bought one of those Sharper Image air ionizers. (bad mistake if I had)
 
Oh I've always wanted a Super Shamie! I saw a live demonstration at an auto show once and it was quite entertaining. He spilled Pepsi on a carpet, but after the shamie handled it, the carpet was bone dry!
 
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