Almost became an AOWA victim

I was in Ortigas Home Depot earlier today around 2pm. We were intercepted by a girl who claims she will give us a free bag, we just had follow here to their store. When we got to their store located outside of the Home Depot at the farthest edge, they eagerly demonstrated an induction cooker. I was very interested at the cooker since I was actually in the market for one. They asked me to write my name and address just so they can release the free bags. When they saw my address, one of the sales rep exclaimed that it was our lucky day and that since I was from QC but first they had to see some identification that I was indeed from QC. So I gamely took out my Drivers License and gave it to them. When they verified that I was indeed from QC, they claimed they were going to give away several of their high priced items to us if I bought their high priced water purifier. All their items are priced above 40k:

• Water Purifier
• Induction Stove
• Cooking Set
• Pressure Cooker
• Chopper

It was a circus, with almost all the sales rep in the store butting in,touting the features of their products most especially the induction stove. Sometime in the mayhem, they asked to see my credit card just to check if it had a special marking. It WAS foolish of me to hand it over but I did. They were all very insistent that I buy the Water Purifier to get all the freebies but I was quite hesitant:

1) I just had a major expense
2) I wasn't in the market for the other products, just the induction cooker

They continued to bombard me with information regarding the features of the induction cooker but I told them that it was way too expensive. Too bad for them, I was quite informed regarding the operation of the stove so I wasn't wowed by their demo and I knew the going rate for induction cookers. I told them I was only interested in the Induction Cooker and the Cooking Set and asked how much it costs? They told me that they might be able to get approval to sell the Induction Cooker to me for 15k with no freebie items. I told them it was still expensive and it was way out of my budget, I was only willing to pay a maximum of 5k. In the end, their plea was that this was such a good opportunity and that it would be such a waste if I let it pass. I told them, I would think about it and asked for my license and my credit card back. They warned me that the prizes/promo they were offering me was good only till today or till someone snatches up the items so I run the risk of losing out. I told them its fine and walked out of there with the free bags but with a lot of my time wasted.

When I got home a few minutes ago, I took the liberty of looking up AOWA and my gut feeling was correct. I found a lot of unsatisfied or should I say tricked/scammed consumers. You can find some of their stories here, here and here.

IMHO, to be strict about it, its not actually a scam since they will give you the products they say they'll give you, its just that their products are just way overpriced and their marketing tactics are just agressive, offensive and depends heavily on the customer being uninformed and easy to excite. Still, to all those reading this, in my humble opinion,

DO NOT BUY AOWA'S OVERPRICED PRODUCTS

I believe you can get better value for your money buying the products separately from other known brands.