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| TX: 22.09.05 - Disability Aids PRESENTER: CAROLYN ATKINSON |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. ATKINSON All around the room here at Alexandra Palace there are stalls selling products for people with disabilities - big button telephones, talking newspapers, state of the art wheelchairs, stuff for the bathroom, stair lifts - you can buy any kind of aid here, all claiming to make your life easier and your wallet lighter. Well occupational therapist Maggie Winchcombe's also here. Maggie, there's a growing concern amongst people like yourselves - occupational therapists and equipment experts - that many of the products for disabled people are being marketed at very, very high prices, there's a rip off going on. WINCHCOMBE Yes I'd agree with that. I think because more and more people are forced to go out and buy their own products for themselves that's not being provided perhaps by the state and they're actually having to make these decisions about what they use in a vacuum - they don't know what's readily available. Now the Office of Fair Trading did some work a couple of years ago, I think maybe 18 months, on doorstep selling and identified that the area of mobility products was rife with heavy selling. So people may be just would respond to an advertisement on the strength of that they would then be subjected to very heavy pressure selling and then be offered products well over the price that they were worth. ATKINSON So can you give us some examples of the types of hard sell that we hear about? WINCHCOMBE Okay, well just two weeks ago my own father, he filled in a questionnaire and sent it off and the next thing he's actually visited by a salesman wanting to sell him an adjustable bed and the price that was on offer was £3,600. He offered to take the VAT off because my dad has angina and when he didn't bite, then he then said Okay, well if you tell your friends about us we'll take another thousand pounds off. My father didn't bite at that point but within the space of one visit the price came down to two and a half thousand, it was still overpriced at that price. ATKINSON So the psychological playing is going on, making people - because they don't know what the price should be. WINCHCOMBE That's right, there is a very low consumer awareness because people have relied on the state to provide this in the past. So we're at a bit of a turning point between do we have state provision to meet everyone's needs or do we have an open market? ATKINSON And this open market, I mean what sort of products are we talking about because wheelchairs are generally provided or at least vouchers are provided by the wheelchair services across the country? WINCHCOMBE Riser, recliner chairs, mobility scooters, some bath lifting equipment and adjustable beds - these sorts of products. ATKINSON With any other product - whether it's a sofa or a cooker - you basically have a choice and there's a low cost shop that you can go to and buy a low cost product, that doesn't happen with disability aids does it, is that what is needed? WINCHCOMBE I think that would open things up and that's a very interesting idea. I think we've got this dilemma about if it's got a disabled label on it, then there aren't that many people that are going to buy - that it's for. But I think actually with ageing population issues coming out we need more opportunities to get products that work for us and help us to just live independently as we age. ATKINSON So in fact this argument that the market's quite small and that's why the price is high is actually beginning to go away now? WINCHCOMBE Well I think - yes, we're at a turning point in terms of business opportunities, there is going to be an expanding market, particularly if things are marketed to older people who are looking to maintain the quality of life and keep independent. ATKINSON Now on the other side of the fence here we have Stuart Dunne, who's managing director of Cyclone, which manufactures wheelchairs. Stuart, you've heard Maggie say there that it's a rip off, companies are moving in, they're targeting disabled people and they're overcharging - what do you say to that? DUNNE I thought that in the beginning, oh I've bought a wheelchair from America, it cost me £2,000, cor I can make this, it's only bent steel, bent aluminium. So then I started a company, started to manufacture products, sold them considerably less - 50% of the price of the competitors. And then slowly realised that the margins and the overheads all have to be appropriated in a different way because it's such a lower volume and you soon come to the conclusion that the products have to be a higher price just to keep you in business and keep you alive. ATKINSON So what would you call a sort of reasonable profit margin, if you say that a wheelchair that you're selling for £2,000 - how much money are you making on that? DUNNE Well a bottom line figure of anything between 6-10% for a company is acceptable, it's acceptable in the motor industry, it's acceptable in the cycling industry, 8% of your turnover is not extortionate profits and as long as somebody's not coming out with 25-30% net margins at the end of the day then I don't think they're overcharging or ripping people off. ATKINSON So in the example we had there - £2,000 for a wheelchair - you'd be making £200 maximum? DUNNE That would be the net margins at the end of the day yeah. ATKINSON We hear lots of examples, we heard Maggie there giving an example of people doing the hard sell, the doorstep selling, the price suddenly miraculously comes down, are there cowboys in this industry? DUNNE Yeah, same as in the double glazing industry. You know somebody can come through with a double glazing conservatory, start at £24,000 and before they walk out the door they can come down to 14. So I think it's commercial awareness from the public. You know the fact that there are people in the industry that come in with a high price and discount heavily to get the sale, then maybe somebody like the BHTA - the British Healthcare Trades Association - maybe they could be a governing point, an advice point. There's certainly bulletins about that tell people about the price of scooters and wheelchairs and other disability equipment. Maybe there should be some central point that people can go to, to find this information out. ATKINSON Do you think some people are going after a product thinking they need a product and being mis-sold and therefore spending money on something they don't need? DUNNE The straight answer would be yes. The long answer would probably work around people buy lots of things that they don't really need. The fitness industry serves people that use fitness equipment for three, four, five months, then it sits in the attic. So people do buy things that they don't need, whether they're disabled or able-bodied. There are ethical people in the industry and there are unethical people in the industry. ATKINSON Now we've got members of the public here listening to this debate. Alan Norton, you have had experience of buying products for yourself, do you feel that there is a rip off going on? NORTON Yeah, I've got an example recently, I've got a bit of kit in the bathroom, helps me in and out of the bath and it sits on rubber suckers, just a few pence in value. The company won't sell me that part of the product I've got to pay £500 for a new piece of equipment. So to me that's not acceptable. I think there's go to be some kind of credibility, there's got to be some standards of conduct. We can do it for insurance, we can do it for banking, there's got to be government intervention here and we've got to be able to stop these cowboys ripping people off who are vulnerable, perhaps who haven't got the information they need to know what is a good buy and what's not. ATKINSON But no one is making them hand over the money, they are, at the end of the day, deciding to buy that product. NORTON But they're in a - probably at home in a closed environment, high pressure selling goes on, I've examples where people have been taken to the bank to get the money for deposits. It's conduct that's really not acceptable. ATKINSON Now Paul Morris you're listening in to the debate as well, you've had a personal example of this, can you tell us what happened to you? MORRIS Yeah I was buying an electric scooter and I was priced at the time £3,500 and eventually after negotiating with the sales people and wheeling and dealing I managed to get it for £1700 in the end. And I thought if I didn't sort of barter I would have been charged £3,500. And I feel that it's not fair. People are ripping off the disabled and knowing that they need it to get around and they're not giving them a reasonable price. ATKINSON What's the solution to this then? MORRIS The solution is, is for some of the big manufacturers to lower their prices straight off. ATKINSON And Timothy Glover, you're listening in to the debate as well, you've had an experience with buying hearing aids, can you tell me what happened to you? GLOVER I found that I had 10 of my friends and basically eight of them had hearing aids and I was the only National Health one. And I think the real thing is for people to shop around and get quotes. And I found my brother was convinced that he needed private hearing aids at many - over a thousand pound an ear and I persuaded him to try National Health ones first and he was perfectly happy with the National Health ones. So what I'm really saying is just see if you need that amount of technical advance, shop around, get some more quotes and see if you're happy spending that amount. Can you hear the difference? That's what I'm really saying. ATKINSON Maggie Winchcombe, we've heard there lots of examples where people feel they're having a big problem, so what should they do? WINCHCOMBE Well the British Healthcare Trades Association is bringing in a code of practice so that all their members are trading ethically. So I think consumers need to know that if they go to a retailer or they try and buy a product through a company that is a member of that BHTA, got that badge, then they can be confident that they're going to get a decent service. But that's one thing. ATKINSON And if they don't see that badge what's the advice? WINCHCOMBE I think if they don't see that badge I think you do not make an instant decision about buying anything, you thank that person for the information and you consider it. ATKINSON So don't hand your money over until you're absolutely sure you're paying the right price? WINCHCOMBE Exactly, yes, I think be strong as a consumer. You're the mum with the money in your pocket and therefore you've got the power. ATKINSON Okay, Maggie Winchcombe and Stuart Dunne, managing director of Cyclone, thank you both very much indeed. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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