Acorn Stairlifts High pressure on senior citizens, Deceptive pricing, $1000.00 rip-off, Price gauging Orlando, Florida

I have a close friend called Elgin whom is seventy two years old & has a awful back problem because of riding motorbikes whenever he was young. He can no longer travel up and down his stairs without the fear of falling.

Apparently, this is a common occurance with many older people. Something that the rest of us take for granted, happens to be a major effort or a nearly impossible feat for many senior citizens.

My friend saw a a commercial on TV for a company that manufactures and sells a device that transports a person up their stairs by riding on a chair that is connected to a motorized lift. The company is called Acorn from England. They have office space here in the States, but everything is made across the pond, so to speak.

He called the toll-free number in the TV ad, and a surveyor came out to his house to measure his stairs and give him an estimate. I was there when all of this happened, so this is not a third party account of what transpired.

The price for the lift was $3500, which was more than Elgin was prepared to pay. The surveyor, who sounded more like a salesman, tried many ways to coerce my friend to purchase his unit that day, however Elgin was not prepared to buy that day. The Acorn representative finally left the house, after which, Elgin & I had a chat about the entire sales hype experience. Elgin concluded that he preferred to hold off & simply consider having to pay that amount of cash.

4 days later, the telephone rang at Elgin's home, & it was Acorn once again. They professed to have a cancelled lift order at a storage warehouse in New Jersey, & that they would allow him to purchase it for only 3 thousand dollars if he was able to place a down payment on it that day. Elgin was certainly not able to provide a deposit, so he passed on the deal. Then, ten days after that call, sales rep from Acorn telephoned Elgin, & confided with him that they were holding a special confidential sale, & that he can purchase a brand new Acorn for only $2500, the so-called best price on an Acorn lift.

Elgin asked the individual on the telephone just how the cost could go from thirty five hundred dollars all the way down to twenty five hundred dollars in only two weeks. The individual on the telephone did not offer a credible explanation, so Elgin simply hung up on the person who had called him.

My friend subsequently purchased a Bruno stairlift, because he can always get local service and get it at a better price than the Acorn, even after all of the suspect discounts that they offered. Had Elgin given in to the high pressure of the Acorn surveyor, and purchased it when he was there, Elgin would have been ripped off for $1000.00.