Complaint about Stannah warranty

BrassicBroke

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice.

My 90 year old father died a couple of weeks ago.

Back in March of this year he purchased a Stannah stairlift as he was no longer able to use the stairs in his property.

This week the company came and removed the stairlift and gave us (his children) a cheque for £600.

However, on closer inspection of his agreement with Stannah we see that when my father purchased his stairlift he also agreed to pay £412 for an extended 4 year warranty - this is despite the fact that the stairlift already came with a 2 year warranty.

We feel that my father was mis-sold this extended warranty - he was 90 at the time of buying so the chances of his either being able to live independently, or of surviving for a further 4 years seemed unlikely. Unfortunately my father arranged the deal with Stannah before any of us were able to get the time off work to oversee things (we were unaware of his intention of buying a stairlift until he'd already signed on the dotted line, and no way would we have let him agree to purchasing an extended warranty for over £400!)

Is there anything that we can do to either reclaim this money, or even just to register our disgust that someone came to his home and persuaded an OAP to part with a chunk of his savings (my father was not a rich man, and the home where he lived would make this apparent)? He lived alone too, so it's not even like the company could justify selling this extended warranty because the chair could be useful for another older person living in the house, in the event of his death.

Myself and my siblings are so angry that such a well-known company could do this.

mikey72

If it's a mis sold waranty, the first port of call for advise would be the FOS. Give them a call and see what they say.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

pinkshoes

Have you written to Stannah and asked them to refund the extended warranty? I'd also be asking for a full investigation into why it was sold to a 90 year old!

mountainofdebt

Brassic

I'm sorry for your loss but tbh I think you're on a hiding to nothing.

I'm assuming that your dad was fully aware of what he was signing and tbh the extended warranty that was beign offered is no different to that which many retail companies offer .....you only have to go into Argos to be asked whether you want an extended warranty these day

Whilst I don't know your dad's state of health, I know many people who are well into their 90s independantly. Also it is hard to judge how wealthy a person is just from the house that they live in....how many times have people died living in hovels and then turned out to be quite wealthy?

heretolearn_2

Are you suggesting that there should be an automatic age restriction on these warranties? That's a bit unfair on the 90 odd year olds who want one. I can understand why you feel upset, but it's not for the salesperson to look at the buyer and think 'hmmm, he doesn't look well, or he looks pretty hale and hearty, I estimate he'll live for another X months/years' and sell according to their completely uninformed guess. Your father was offered the warranty, he accepted it. Presumably as he laid out a considerable amount of money for the stairlift etc, he thought he still had a good few years left and wasn't expecting to die quite soon afterwards. So why should the salesperson make that diagnosis for him?

I am sorry for your loss though, but I think you should just let this go. It's not going to help your father now to go back about this - if he were still alive and you wanted to save him the money, then ok I could see the point maybe. But it's too late for that. All you can achieve now is to get embroiled in a big dispute and make a difficult time more difficult for yourselves. Do you really care about getting that £400 back for your inheritance? I'm sure that's not what this is about. And you aren't going to change their policies - like I said, it wouldn't be right for them to look at people and try to guess how much longer they have to live!