Doorstep sales - alzheimer's sufferer

[Henzy]

My grandad lost his wife last year and has since been diagnosed with alzheimer's.

My Nan bought an expensive motorised chair around 10 years ago which is in as good of condition as the day it was delivered. She weighed very little and hardly used the motorised tipping feature, only when her arthritis was particularly bad.

My mother recently visited and noticed the chair had been replaced.
Turns out a doorstep sales man from the same company turned up and offered to take away the old chair and replace it with a brand new one. He didn’t believe there would be a cost for this. Unfortunately he was alone with this salesman and due to his condition we can only speculate on what happend and take what he says with a pinch of salt.

May also be worth noting My Nan’s will left all of her property to her Daughters with my grandad having life interest in the flat.
If you were to spend 5 minutes talking with him, it would be clear he is vulnerable and no longer the full ticket.

My sister and I are going round to see him tonight to find out the company details, times and dates but I’m under the impression he may be outside of the 14 day cooling off period.

I’m hoping the company given their demographic will do the morally correct and refund him the full £3,500 for a chair he does not use or need and refund the £70 for removing the old chair!

Am I right in thinking, legally they do not have to refund outside of the 14 days cooling off period or is there any exception due to his condition or ownership of the old chair?

I am out of my depth here, so any pointers or help with letter writing would be greatly appreciated.

[Henzy]

akirk said:

So he sold your grandfather a replacement chair, when the original was for your grandmother - i.e. your grandfather had no need of the chair?

if so:
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/...

Pretty much, yes. Thanks for the link

[Henzy]

Butter Face said:

He's classed as a vulnerable person and the salesman should very well have realised this (especially as he probably deals with lots of elderly customers)

A call to his boss outlining the situation should sort it out pretty quickly,

This is what I first thought, their products are designed for the elderly.

Thanks I will check the paperwork tonight and this will be my fist port of call.

[Henzy]

theboss said:

I'll bet anything it's the same company which also recently sold my grandmother two of the same for a combined cost of £6k. She was told they were half price at that! Apparently a guy came around to provide a demonstration and it seems she was a victim of hard sales tactics. PM me if you wish.

A quick look around a mobility shop recently revealed very similar looking chairs priced between £500-1100

Thanks, I'll check out the paperwork tonight and may PM you tomorrow.

[Henzy]

We went to see Grandad last night, he seems well. He was doing his best to justify his purchase and saying the sales man was very nice and replacing the chair just came up in conversation. We all know what his agenda was when he knocked on the door. I would love to ask him how he sleeps at night.

Turns out there has been a bit of miss communication, Mum has all the paperwork and is dealing with it. I wasn’t able to get hold of her last night to see how she was getting on.
We did clean his flat, fill his fridge and checked his accounts weren’t empty.

He has no power of attorney and as mentioned, because of his diagnosis, it is unlikely he will be able to choose anyone.

I like the idea of putting up a No Cold Calling sign, however he lives in a flat so not sure about putting one up on the communal door, and if put on his internal door, they would have already “buzzed”. Are salesmen even put off by these signs?

CCTV certainly would help and I will see how the rest of the family feel about that.

The credit card was closed when Nan passed and he only has a debit card now. I was hoping as a last resort we could call his bank and they would chargeback and investigate.