Elderly and Vulnerable People Are Easy Targets

Real life story from one of our website visitors.

Whilst manning the live chat on our website yesterday, a message popped up saying ' As your telephone is no longer working and you won't respond to my communication, please call 07#######'.

Not having a clue what the statement was referring to, I immediately answered with 'Can you please elaborate on your statement and why you need me to call you'.

The visitor then immediately clicked the 'rate this operator' button and rated me as BAD. This was clearly someone who was not happy and was out to give it to me both barrels. However, after what seemed like an eternity (watching 'the visitor is typing' flashing), the next message eventually shed light on what had made this person so angry and as I was later to find out, an issue that had been consuming her for weeks.

The next message read..

"you sent letter refund £1300 trading standards promised by yourselves August 24th payment by cheque- I have not received this, contact needed urgent. I am without a bed!!! and am disabled!"

Now, we don't sell products directly on My Mobility Hub, so the next logical step was to check how the lady had come to our website and which page she was on when she clicked the live chat button. Doing this, I could see that the page she was on, was that of a company who had listed with us on a free account.

Assuming that each company listed with us had their own live chat on our site, this poor lady thought she had hit the jackpot with a line of communication to a company that had given her so many sleepless nights - quite literally in this case!

I asked her directly if the company in question (they will remain anonymous for now) was in fact the company in the profile she was last looking at on our website - Then up pops the box 'Visitor has left the chat'. Arghhh! Although to be fair, she did change the chat rating to good before she left :)

I couldn't leave it there. Knowing it could be a long call, I made myself a coffee and dialled the number the 'user' had left.

It turns out the 'user' in question, is a rather lovely 87 year old disabled woman with a poorly husband, and for the next 10 minutes, I gave her my ear to let out all of her frustrations, anger and resentment to the company in question. (I knew that coffee would come in handy). A company that had sent out a 'pushy' salesman to sell her an adjustable bed for £1300.

Four months later and there is no bed and no sign of the money being refunded.

After another 10-15 minutes giving her advice of what to do and roping in her nephew to help, my new 87 year old friend was laughing and telling me that my call had made her day. NO! Turning your despair into laughter, made MY day! And as promised, we are here any time you or anybody else being ripped of by unscrupulous companies need help.

We feel really strongly about elderly and vulnerable people being targeted by the very people they trust to help them. Unfortunately, too many companies in the mobility and elderly care industry were set up by people feeling it was an easy sell.

After all, what can be harder than pushing an 87 year old woman to part with £1300 cash? Yes, Mr Pushy Salesman said they could not accept card payments. Maybe his commission is paid sooner on cash payments!

We work with some amazing companies on My Mobility Hub. Companies who go that extra mile, companies who care about the person behind the purchase. Companies who would never rip off elderly and vulnerable people.

To this end, we have made the decision to remove the free listing facility on our website as all the issues people have brought to light (and hassles we have had), have (you guessed it) come from companies who have listed FREE on our website. We are in no way tarring everyone with the same brush here. We have upgraded some free listings of companies we know are reputable at no charge.

Nearly every day, we have emails or live chat sessions with people asking where's the best place to buy this or can you recommend a company for that. We will ONLY recommend the best! And we will make sure that our website remains full of trustworthy and honest companies and individuals.

To my new found friend. Keep in touch and keep that laughter going! John

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