Acorn stairlifts hard sell?

johnwallace

I had a call from Acorn Stairlifts about buying a stair lift, obviously.

I told him I was thinking of selling my semi and buying a bungalow and what did I get?

No OK sorry for troubling you or words to that effect.

I get him telling me that this was the wrong time to be selling a house and buying a bungalow and that I would be a lot cheaper staying put and buying a stair lift.

I just hung up on him while he was in mid sentence.

Abbafan1972

So as well as selling stairlifts, he also moonlights as an Estate Agent? These people never give up, do they?:mad:

tomwakefield

johnwallace wrote: »

... I would be a lot cheaper staying put and buying a stair lift.

Do you know what's cheaper than buying a stair lift?

Not buying a stair lift

micksboy79

We had an Acorn stair lift installed almost a year ago and purchased their extended warranty. The swivel chair failed at the end of June this year trapping myself upstairs. I called their service department and was told it would be 24 hours before they could get to me. They seemed not to care that I could not get downstairs and my wife who is disabled would not be able to get up the stairs and past the stair lift. Looking at the lift I could see that the swivel motor could be unbolted so I had to get my disabled wife to pass me a spanner so I could remove it. Having removed the motor, just two bolts holding it, I could now swivel the chair manually to get the lift working again. The engineer came out, which was a Sunday morning, to fix the problem. First thing he said was that he was not used to working on swivel chairs. After looking at the lift he said he was not sure what the problem was but thought a fuse might have blown. He then asked me for a fuse, which was of a higher capacity than the one he took out. I said to him that in my experience if a fuse blows you need to know what has caused it, not replace it with one of a higher amperage. He fitted the fuse and got the chair working. After a few days we noticed that the swivel seat was travelling too far and when I looked underneath I could see that the limit switch to prevent this had not been fitted back properly. Again a call was made to the service department and another engineer came out to rectify the matter. The chair has failed again today, this time trapping my disabled diabetic wife upstairs. After ringing Acorn I was told no one could attend for 24 hours. They seemed not to appreciate that my wife was trapped upstairs, our toilet is downstairs and we do not keep food in the bedrooms. I had to leave my office and travel 30 miles back home to take the motor off again to get the lift working. When I returned to my office I rang Acorn again and told them what had happened and that I had to go and remove the motor to get my wife downstairs. Their reply was that I had invalidated my warranty and no amount of argument from me would convince them that almost everybody in my situation would have done the same thing. How can their consciences be clear knowing that in these situations people are being trapped in their homes. They are keen to express how your life can be changed by having a stair lift fitted, but not how it dramatically it changes for the worse when it stops working. All of this happened at 9.15 today and after a lengthy conversation on the telephone to a supervisor they said they could get an engineer to us at 3.p.m., but that would still have left my wife trapped for 6 hours. She is also a diabetic and had she suffered a hypoglycaemic attac[SIZE=+0]k[/SIZE] she would have had no way of getting herself out of it. It now seems we will have to keep a spanner, screwdriver and glucose tablets upstairs in case this happens again.