Stairlift charity rip off

haven't I seen this post already?

Hi Concernedrelative,

I work at Age UK so hope you don’t mind my response - we are always concerned when people aren’t happy.

Companion are owned by Handicare, the manufacturer of the stairlifts. Age UK work alongside Handicare to supply stairlifts for people in later life. The Companion offices are based in Leeds and this is also the call centre that handle the Age UK calls, however they are run separately as Age UK have specific demands and requirements for their customers. Age UK clients also have different service levels to Companion customers which I am happy to discuss with yourself, but if the products are "like for like" there shouldn’t be any major differences on price.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that no two installations are the same; there can be different rail, footplate and swivel options for the same product. All Stairlifts are bespoke to a customers home. We also encourage all of our customers to take advantage of our “low price guarantee”, if you get a lower quote for a similar product and level of service then we'll happily match it. I'd be happy to look into this for you if you'd to get in touch, and if appropriate we will honour it.

If you would like to private message me to give further details I will be more than happy to look into this matter and respond to you accordingly.

StairliftMatt All credit to you in replying to the Ops question and your offer of discussing the problem,it's a pity that all Companies do not have your level of Customer Care.Well done you.

Age UK are always my port in a storm. They've been no end of help with some of my mother's issues.

Different service levels!! Well we certainly paid for the "different service level" didn't we? Your "low price guarantee" didn't work for us as we didn't want to get any other quotes as were happy with your surveyor. So we paid what we thought was a "low price".

Our friend has the same staircase, same amount of steps but is just on the opposite side to ours, she did only get 1 years warranty and she wasn't offered any extra warranty and is now worried about how much it will cost her to cover the stairlift when her warranty runs out, is it going to be £500??

My Mum needed a stairlift and we got lots of quotes. In the end we went with a company called Leodis Stairlifts, we looked at their website. They sell different makes so found the best stairlift for Mums needs. It was fitted within a day, came with a good warranty and they knew we were on a budget. The managing director takes all the calls. They also buy lifts too.

My father never found Sarga or Age UK cost effective for House or Car insurance.
The house is however worth £500k so it may be a little bit expensive for some pensioners.
Also I was a named driver on his car insurance policy.

Frank

We had a Stannah stairlift fitted for my mother and they were great. We thought they were fair cost wise and two years on they are still very helpful if we ever need them.

Mine is a second hand one which cost under a thousand pounds fitted. The maintenance costs are very reasonable as well. Cheaper than my burglar and panic alarm.

Galen, I like the sound of reasonable maintenance costs. Mine is a Companion but although it is still working, it needs something major doing to it. There is somebody coming next week to look at it. Which company looks after yours?

A very small local one Avon mobility I think

Thanks, they are probably miles away from London but I will Google them.

I think its always worth getting different quotes but I can see how the particular mobility needs of the passenger and the layout of the staircase could make a big difference to the costs.

Just looking at my staircase it could be very difficult to get an arrangement that doesn't get in the way at the top and bottom of my staircase. I hope I never need one.

I can't access the top three steps of mine as it takes a rt angled d
Bend from a mini landing. Even a curved lift won't do it as the main soil drain is in the corner.

Galen that description of your stairlift has me wondering! If the lift doesn't go all the way to your landing how do you use it at all? I have visions of you just sleeping on the stair lift 3steps down from your landing. Please enlighten me.

This seems to be a common and worrying problem with the larger stairlift companies / manufactures. They see customer enquiries as a chance to use double glazing sales tactics on people in vulnerable circumstances.

My personnel experience was when I made enquiries last year for a stairlift for an L shaped staircase. I picked out 3 companies: Stannah, Acorn & Handicare. I assumed going directly to the manufactures I would get a stairlift cheaper by cutting out the middle man – how wrong was I. The prices quoted seemed extremely high especially when I got quoted £5,800 from Acorn without them even seeing my stairs. So on that note I decided to do a little more shopping around.

In the end we found a company called Unicorn Stairlifts in yorkshire: www.unicornstairlifts.co.uk – they offered the same level of service as the bigger companies but at a more realistic price, plus what I liked about them is that all stairlifts where priced online. I got the same stairlift Acon quoted £5800, for only £2500.

My advice to anyone looking for a stairlift is shop around.

in april of this year my wife had to retire on ill health grounds at the young age of 51 , she has breathing problems so a stair lift was needed urgently, we did shop around but in the end we decided to go with acorn stairlifts, now this firm uses doctor hilary of t.v fame as a " front man " in the company's dvd presentation, presents a very sleek view of the stairlifts, but & this is a very big but, as other have said already once the sales man arrives- in our case within 24 hours it was a typical double glazing salesman routine, on opening the front door we were told straight off that as we had a narrow staircase - ours is a maisonette - that they would have to import one from the holland at the cost of £7,000 told the rep that if thats what we are facing he can go away,then he starting taking measurements of the stairs etc, then states that they can do one for £5,400,only reached this amount after he did the " calls to head office to get us a deal routine " now as my wife is registered disabled she is entitled to not have to pay v.a.t on such items, we pointed this out to the salesman,and in doing so saved £800 approx, we had to sign on a printed form that he had in his brief case a declaration to this, but he never mentioned this as a possible option- one wonders why !! but it gets worse, we asked about warranty's etc, theirs only came with a one year which we thought was low ,we asked him about extended warranty's etc but all he would say was that the installer would discuss that with us afterwards we payed a 50 percent deposit & the installation would take place within a week, the install went ok & showed my wife how to use it etc, all good so far, then the bomb shell, they have three levels of service contacts,bronze,silver & gold the gold one is for a four year "deal " of no call out / parts charges etc BUT they want £1,600 for this service and in the five months we have had the stairlift hardly a week goes by without a call from them chasing us to sign up, we have not done so yet, but we get the impression that they want to get as much money out of us as soon as possible, so please be very aware with this company's dare we say it " sharp practice"

We are hiring a stairlift at a very reasonable price. But I find this all very interesting and will keep it in mind if ever we need to have one installed permanently. I'm not impressed with the 'aegument' put forward but the Age UK either,

Like everything you have, have, have to shop around. Sometimes its better to buy local than got to a National company.

Watch out for the 'service contract' as this can sometimes be the sting in the tale.

If you have any stairlift related questions try www.stairlift-forum.co.uk

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

I think that Dave has made a very good and informative post. Yes, he does work in the sector, but the advice he had given is helpful and (unlike some other posts that we have had on a variety of subjects) although he operates in the industry he doesn't seem to be pushing his own company!

Just wondering why "DAVE" has resurrected this post 6 months on ???

Ooops, didn't notice that bit Nonu