Lucky escape! It shows how good these con-artists are at what they do, when you went in fully expecting it would be a huge scam, and still got talked into it!

My strategy these days is to never commit to any significant purchase on the spot. Car, sofa, whatever it is, they will always try to lay on the pressure and make it seem like it’s urgent and if you don’t get it now you’ll miss the limited deal, or someone else will buy it or whatever the trick is, but you have to stay firm.

My go to line is “I’ll take that away and think about it”- which gets me out of loads of trouble.

Slimy sales people have plenty of psychological tricks they weave into conversations to get you invested and ready to buy. They want you yourself even to be saying “Yeah that seems like a good deal!” because once you say that, they’ve basically got you - you can’t back out because you’d be disagreeing with yourself, and it’s human nature and pride almost that we ‘stick’ with our decisions.

That’s why never making a decision on the day is the strongest defence. It means you don’t have to be a skilled conversationalist who can spot all the sweet talk and see through the tricks. You’re totally free to get suckered and say “That sounds great!” but not have that become a commitment.

If it sounds great now it will still sound great after you go home and think about it, after all.