The Flim-flam game?

I think we were about to be scammed. We are thnking about doing some work in our kitchen, and work in the kitchen is never cheap. Being at the begining of the process, we thought we'd start by getting an estimate for refacing our cabinets. Thus we contacted a certain national home improvement provider (not Lowe's or Home Depot) and they promptly sent out a representative to take measurements and give a quote.

It was not been a pleasant experience. I wasn't (too) bothered by the fact that the rep plopped his big dirty sample bag on my kitchen table. I wasn't (too) bothered by a snarky comment he made. I was shocked by the quote. Our kitchen is not that big; we don't have that many cabinets. The quote for refacing--not replacement--nearly $20,000! But wait, he'd give us a 10% discount because it was "low season" and another 10% if we signed the contract on the initial visit. He informed us that "60% of his contacts" sign on the initial visit. Yeah, right. Not us. I think that was the flim.

Now the flam. Lo and behold, we got a call earlier today from this company, offering us a new opportunity. They could cut the price drastically. We just needed to meet with another rep., who would need to take new measurements. "Why should we be the beneficiaries of such a price reduction? Why didn't the first rep offer that deal to us before?" I asked. According to the guy on the phone, this was a new product, for which there were currently no "marketing costs " to be included in pricing the job, but come this time next year, the price would be much higher. The first rep didn't have access to this offer because he was a regional salesperson, rather than a corporate rep. Although the telephone guy would never provide specifics, the materials to be used were from the same company, of similar quality. Oh, okay.

What the "corporate rep" didn't know is that we now have more information. We in fact confirmed that the first quote was very inflated. Were we about to be scammed? I think so.