Treadmill hardsell to wheelchair user outrages family.
When Jean-Pierre Hammond’s daughter, Jessica Hammond, found out her 82-year-old father, who is confined to a wheelchair and lives in a rest home hospital, had been sold a treadmill that retails for more than $2000, she was outraged.
That outrage intensified when she obtained recordings of his phone call with the sales operator from television shopping company Brand Developers, in which Hammond can be heard saying repeatedly that he does not want to go ahead with the purchase.
It is only when the salesman drops the $2000 price tag by $1000, after a conversation of about half an hour, that he agrees.
Hammond said her father was cognitively impaired as the result of his strokes and was vulnerable.
‘‘He’s a little bit unclear about what happened but he was watching TV and rang and had a quick conversation then someone rang back . . . the first any of us knew was when an air fryer turned up at the rest home. I rang and they said ‘that’s a free gift, he’s ordered a treadmill’.
‘‘I spent weeks and weeks calling them trying to get a refund.
‘‘Then I got a recording of one of these phone calls. What they’re supposed to do is get some idea of whether what they are selling is suitable but this guy just talked non-stop and Dad ended up giving his card details.’’
The recording shows Hammond saying he lives in a hospital room. When he says ‘‘the price is a bit more than I’m prepared to pay, I think I’ll cancel the whole thing’’, the salesman replies with: ‘‘The product will be delivered to your door in 14 days.’’
He says: ‘‘I want to cancel the order.’’
The salesman replies: ‘‘That won’t be possible because we’ve placed the order for you.’’
Hammond said her father had told the retailer that he was in a wheelchair.
‘‘He said a couple of times that he was in a hospital. I think they had enough information to know it was inappropriate . . . the lengths I had to go to get it back and get a refund . . .’’
The salesman told Hammond to call another number to request a refund but Hammond asked why he could not just be put through, because he did not have a pen and paper to record another number.
Hammond himself, who has suffered multiple strokes, said he struggled to understand the salesman and felt that he couldn’t get ‘‘a word in edgeways’’.
‘‘He just kept going and going. I’m upset about that.’’
His wife, Christine Hammond, described it as ‘‘unbelievably bad’’. She said she felt the company was exploiting older people who were not able to respond.
‘‘If it wasn’t for us having a younger generation trying to deal with this we probably would have just given up.’’
Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson said it was obnoxious behaviour and could be in breach of Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act rules.
But she said her organisation wanted an unconscionable conduct provision in the law, too, for these situations.
The Commerce Commission has received 47 complaints about Brand Developers trading as TV Shop since March 1, 2020. Four complaints are still under assessment, all others have been assessed.
Brand Developers said it was in direct contact with Jessica Hammond and was providing the information she had requested to resolve the matter.
‘‘He said a couple of times that he was in a hospital. I think they had enough information to know it was inappropriate.’’ Jessica Hammond