Chesterfield Online Forum
General Category => Chesterfield Discussion => Topic started by: Fly on November 14, 2012, 07:47:30 PM
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Let's just say, the .... will hit the fan big time tomorrow.
If I find out, someone has just paid a £500 call out fee, for a stairlift repair, only to find the guys can't repair it.
Yet they can fit a new one for another £1495. :o
Sad isn't it. They pay £160 a year insurance, for repair and servicing of said stairlift >:
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It's starting to look worse. I will name and shame, I'm fuming !!!
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Sounds way out of order,you can get a new one for around £1000 for a straight staircase,at lot more for curved thought,big boys quoting from £1350 online.
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Let's just say, the .... will hit the fan big time tomorrow.
If I find out, someone has just paid a £500 call out fee, for a stairlift repair, only to find the guys can't repair it.
Yet they can fit a new one for another £1495. :o
Sad isn't it. They pay £160 a year insurance, for repair and servicing of said stairlift >:
Surely the £160 covers the call out fee? Name and shame
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Surely the £160 covers the call out fee? Name and shame
Don't worry, I will.
I'm not arguing about the £1495, If they were quoted that and agreed, I can't argue with that.
Like my life isn't troubling me enough lately.
Not a lot I can do tonight though >:(
Funny how the £160 call out fee company phones another company, charges them £500, and secures a £1495 deal.
WITH ANOTHER COMPANY !!
That's how it's looking.
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>> I hate them more than a great big bag full of lots of little hateful things.
It's got to be post of the week. :)
Round of applause for Chris please :D
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Any news ,i was just wondering why the stairlift cannot be repaired anyway after all what ever part as broke you should be able to get a replacement part, unless it is a really old one and not cost effective .
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After another stressful morning, I finally got to Auntie's to investigate.
The repairmen couldn't fix the stairlift, apparently the part, (main board), isn't available any more. Old chair 9yr old.
Though I've seen one on sale on the net for £450 ::)
Auntie said sod this basically, I'll have a brand new one, I want an Acorn one.
If you'd fitted an Acorn in the first place like you were supposed to, I wouldn't be having this trouble now.
Repairmen left. Auntie phoned Acorn, rep came straight out. £500 deposit, rest payable tomorrow when the chair is fitted.
That's all fair and above board, I emailed Acorn last night for confirmation of the order, they actually phoned me this morning whilst I was at Aunties. How's that for service. Bit expensive, but thumbs up for Acorn.
Latest news:
Auntie just text us, stairmen coming at 6.30pm TODAY, to check the chair.
I phoned her and asked her is it 'them' or Acorn coming. She doesn't know :o
I've told her if it's 'them', don't let them into the house until you give them the phone and they have spoke to me !!
If I'd not had a can with my dinner, I'd drive down there now Grrrr.....
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'They' turned up at 6.15pm. Aunty asked who they were from.
They were from the 'the' other company. The one that knew Aunty was phoning Acorn, the one that knew they had been paid a sum of money for repair and upkeep of the stairlift. The same one that said they couldn't mend it.
When asked by Aunty what they wanted, they said we've come to sort out your stairlift.
Aunty replied, I told you yesterday, I've done with you, I've ordered a new one from Acorn, Ok they said, and left.
Question: Has Aunty just refused an offer by the company she pays insurance for, access to the stair lift.
Has she therefore just given her rights away. Were the men sent roung knowing she'd ordered another from another company, therefore getting themselves out of the sh** ??
Hope you get my drift.
Not naming and shaming till I've contacted 'them'.
Full respect for Acorn :)
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My late father in law bought one as he needed one quickly. Hardly used before he was hospitalized. They took it out but gave him sweet f.a. for it back
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" I hate them more than a great big bag full of lots of little hateful things"
Love it!
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" I hate them more than a great big bag full of lots of little hateful things"
Love it!
Yes, sorry Chris, meant to commend you on a great 'statement' ;)
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So now I'm getting grief off Our_Lass cos I didn't phone 'them' earlier today,
to see what happened to the so called insurance policy.
I'm slowly starting to crack up !!
I'm male and human :(
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Mother in law following her broken hip needed a stairlift
Acorn came on the Monday morning and quoted £1995.
Stairlift was fitted by the Friday morning.
Can't fault them on price or service.
Unfortunately (take note Fly) since then they have been on the phone on a number of occasions trying to hard sell long term warrenty where the original salesman told me they could sort this out in a years time when the guarantee ran out 'if they wanted to'.
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@JR Cheers for that.
New stairlift fitted, took Acorn's man an hour and a half to take the old one out and install the new one, Impressed :)
I phoned 'the other' company this morning, I was basically fobbed off by some lady who said warranty payments are paid to someone else. She'll get them to ring me back. She wasn't parting with any other info.
An hour a so later, I got a call from another lady, from the same company.
So I explained about the warranty, and should the stairlift have been replaced by them.
She said no, the terms of the warranty aren't so fully comp as that.
Because of the age of the machine, if her memory serves her right, they would refund the monies in full for that year's warranty, But she wasn't sure, she'd have to check it up.
I asked her if a substantial goodwill payment towards the cost of the new starlift could be also paid, again she said she'd have to check this up.
I await a phone call next week.
Called at Aunty's on my way home, read the T&C of the new stairlift warranty.
1 year all in everything covered, free gratis nice :)
And a further 4 yearly services.
If parts need replacing during the 4 year, you pay for them, unless you have an Acorn extended warranty.
This is where the hand closes round your nuts.
If have an extended bronze warranty £115per-year, you still pay a £55 call out charge and £35 an hour labour.
Silver £260py or Gold £599 4year, you don't get these charges.
The crunch of all this is that if the lift fails at say 7 yr old, and you haven't had continuous silver or gold cover,
you sort of get naff all, maybe your yearly payment back. If you had had continuous cover, you might be offered 50% off the price of a new stairlift.
Aunty had been paying a continuous bronze warranty to 'the' company, so probably isn't due a deal at all after 9 years.
We reckon she's paid more in extended waranty this last 9 years, than what the new lift has cost her.
Guess what, no more extended warranty. It's a new lift, modern design. If it fails, I'll mend it myself.
Sorry for the long post ;)
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I phoned 'the other' company this morning, I was basically fobbed off by some lady who said warranty payments are paid to someone else. She'll get them to ring me back. She wasn't parting with any other info.
An hour a so later, I got a call from another lady, from the same company.
So I explained about the warranty, and should the stairlift have been replaced by them.
She said no, the terms of the warranty aren't so fully comp as that.
Because of the age of the machine, if her memory serves her right, they would refund the monies in full for that year's warranty, But she wasn't sure, she'd have to check it up.
I asked her if a substantial goodwill payment towards the cost of the new starlift could be also paid, again she said she'd have to check this up.
I await a phone call next week.
I phoned them again today, yet again, I was fobbed off and told someone would be in touch.
I was called back an hour later. I'm sure it was the same lady I spoke to the other week.
She reiterated every thing she told me the other week, but soon changed her attitude when I mentioned contacting 'Watchdog'. A full refund of the warranty payment is going to be sent back now ;)
And the goodwill gesture is going to be mentioned to her manager. Pity it wasn't last time I phoned them.
As for Acorn. They've posted Aunty a Full Five Year Gold Warranty, for free :)
http://www.acornstairlifts.co.uk/ (http://www.acornstairlifts.co.uk/) Nice one guys :)
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Result ;)
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Part result, let's see what the other company comes up with.
Can't fault Acorn.
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At least there is 'one' decent company out there Fly Good luck with the 'other' one
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Got back in touch with 'the other company' last week (Friday). We hadn't heard anything since my last call to them in November 2012.
Finally got put through and spoke to the warranty manager. He knew nothing about my previous phone calls and
assured me last year's premium would be sent back to us by cheque in Mondays post.
'A major break down in communications between staff' apparently
It's now Friday, just spoke to Aunty, nothing received all week :(
Get ready for some major naming and shaming :-X
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Forgot to mention. Same said warranty company send Aunty a renewal notice last week too.
Imbeciles. I don't think naming them at this time is appropriate ;)
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Phoned the manager again yesterday. He made out he was gobsmacked that we hadn't received the cheque.
The girl who should have dealt with it wasn't there at the time. He's sorting it out today for us.
Also said he'd phone me before dinner, which he hasn't. I'll give it a few days and see if a cheque lands.
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You're too kind fly. Don't think id have kept as calm for as long.
www companionstairlifts.co.uk
This is the company that we are trying to get the warranty refund from.
www handicare.co.uk
Is the company who supplied and fitted the original stairlift.
Between then, useless. No wonder our 80 year old Aunty got confused.
She thought Acorn fitted the original one cos that's what they paid for ??
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Still no cheque, and still not had a call all from Darren Newberry, warranty manager at Companion Stairlifts.
So I phoned again tonight.
Asked to speak to Darren, told the guy on the phone I was still waiting for a phonecall from him from last week :)
He told me Darren was on the phone and would get right back to me. Which he hasn't. ::)
Guess he was busy and will phone me tomorrow :-[
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I reckon you are being fobbed off now Fly - need more action man ;)
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You posted whilst I was typing this up OC. Looks like were getting somewhere.
Wow, talk about toute vitesse, Darren called me an hour and a half later ;)
Basically: H=him. M=me. A=another person
H Er, I don't seem to find a match with your name and post code.
M That's cos it's my Aunty's post code, I'm phoning on her behalf. Mrs *******. We spoke last week about her refund.
H Oh, yes, Mr, ********, so, we, did. Haven't, you, received, the, cheque, yet.
M Nope, it's the cheque is in the post syndrome. You blamed Joanne last week.
H Yes, I emailed her the details. I can't seem to find it now. Can you remember the date we last spoke.
M 4th Feb
H Thanks, nope, still can't find it.
M Does she work in the same building.
H Yes but she's down stairs in a different department.
M Oh right
H Can I just put you on hold a minute.
M Yup.
Now here's the funny bit, he didn't put me on hold. I heard him say:
H What the hell is Joanne playing at in payment returns. I asked her to post a cheque last week. They've still not got it.
A I don't know but if that's the case, I'm not happy. Sort it.
H Hello Mr *********
M Hiya
H I'm so sorry, I'm not sure what's gone off. Just spoke to my manager and he's not happy.
M I'm not happy, my stressed 80 year old aunty isn't happy.
H Right, leave this with me, I'll get the cheque in the post recorded delivery. You'll have it before the weeks out.
M I hope so.
H Payable to Mrs ******* yes.
M Yep ta
H I'm so sorry about this. I don't understand how such a simple task has turned into such a mess.
M Me neither.
H Again I can only say sorry. I'll get this in the post tomorrow.
M Ok, we'll see. Thankyou Darren. Night.
H Goodnight Mr *******
Watch this space :)) :))
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Result 8)
Aunty received a cheque for full refund of warranty payment this morning ;)
Nothing else, no good will gesture or payment towards the new stairlift, like we expected owt ::)
Better than nothing though :)
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Afraid the days of good customer service seem to have long gone so it seems Fly.
We regularly patronise a sandwich shop in town and they regularly get the order wrong. If that were my business I would try and make amends by giving a discount/free drink etc, as assign of goodwill. Admittedly they apologise but, with all the competition, they need to do all they can to keep customers loyal.
They are very nice people but don't seen to have much business acumen.
Needless to say we are considering alternatives.
PS - sorry for going off topic!
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Daft thing is, Aunty will be glad she got something back.
The fact the new stairlift cost her £2000 is irrelevant :))
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Pleased they finally coughed up fly
@ Alsatian - I agree about the sandwhich shops there are so many they need to keep the loyal customers.
I used to frequent one years ago when I worked in town, one day ordering a salmon and cucumber sandwhich. Toddled off with it to sit on a bench and enjoy. Only there was no salmon in it, so off I went and explained the assistant opened it up peering at the contents - lifted up a ring of cucumber and proudly said there it is!!! :-? Needless to say I found another shop after that
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The heartless, thick ** stupid **, I'm ** fuming >:
If this was done on purpose, I want revenge.
Yes Aunty's received a cheque, it's payable to her deceased husband :o
Also the letter to Aunty was on Age UK headed paper.
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/products/mobility-and-independence-at-home/stairlifts/ (http://www.ageuk.org.uk/products/mobility-and-independence-at-home/stairlifts/)
Guess what, looks like other people have problems with them as well.
My mum had a fall recently, and after returning home from hospital the OT and myself realised my mum needed a stairlift. I decided to do some research and found there seamed to be 3 main companies, Stannah,Acorn and Age uk stairlifts, we decided to have Age uk as we liked the thought of dealing with a charity rather than a large business, and we had heard stories of pressure sales from the other companies.
We made an appointment, thier surveyor came round, who did not pressure us and informed us that the lift would be a straight stairlift called a minivator 950. This would cost £1900 and he told us this was the same price to any Age uk customer, which we liked so we purchased. The lift was fit a week later and everything was fine.
Some weeks later a neighbour of ours had a stairlift installed, I called in to have a look and found it to be the same stairlift as ours. She had purchased it from a company called Companion for £1400 brand new.
I decided to research this company and found that Companion and Age uk are run from the same building in Leeds, they are owned by a larger company called Handicare who supply them with minivator stairlifts.
So if we had called Companion we could have had the same stairlift with the same warranty fit by the same engineers for £500 less, what a con, Age uk are supposed to be helping the elderly! how does this help my mum by taking £500 more for the same product, totally disgusting, wish I had gone to Stannah.
http://www.gransnet.com/forums/product_reviews/a1194219-Stairlift-charity-rip-off (http://www.gransnet.com/forums/product_reviews/a1194219-Stairlift-charity-rip-off)
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You couldn't make this up.
Aunty's received another cheque this morning. Again payable to her deceased husband.
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Sounds like they don't know what they are doing Fly - not listening too you.
I take it the stair lift was installed under your aunty's late husbands name? If so it needs clarifying with them that he is deceased.
Upsetting for your aunty poor lass
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You couldn't make this up.
Aunty's received another cheque this morning. Again payable to her deceased husband.
Pi$$ up and brewery springs to mind! :D
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Who? What? What? ^-^
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Hopefully all is resolved now :)
PM me if you want the details. I'm not posting it on here 8)