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March 11, 2009

ThisAbility #19 Buyer Beware

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 08:56 AM ET

This particular entry has been on deck for a while. It concerns something everyone who ever buys assistive devices should know.

I bought a new scooter a few weeks back, a Pride Victory Twin with a set of twin wheels in the front for increased stability (the better to grip snow with, my dear). Most people who buy scooters in Ontario (other provinces have their own funding programs) do so through Ontario's Assistive Devices Program [ADP]. If you already receive income support from the government, 100% of the cost of your scooter will be covered. If you're like me, and don't currently qualify for income support, 75% of the cost of the scooter is covered and the customer pays the other 25%.

That's not the issue, paying for part of the scooter means it can be delivered to you faster, since the dealer gets at least part of the money they're owed. No, the issue comes from what the dealer charges relative to the manufacturer's suggested retail price. A mark-up so severe, it would never stand without a literal captive audience.

I was told by my dealer,Medichair Etobicoke,that they typically sell the scooter I was buying at a $2000 retail price with all the amenities like cane holders, shopping bag clips, charger backpacks, and whatever other external doohickies I need, thrown in for free.

This price jived with the suggested retail price from PRIDE,the manufacturer, but I was told by Medichair that Ontario's ADP would not cover my scooter at the $2000 retail price because five years ago, the ADP set the prices of every assistive device they cover and that price is $3264 for all scooters. Since this price was set by the government, no matter which dealer I go to, whether its Motion Specialties, Therapist's Choice, or Medichair, I was told that I'd be paying 25% of $3264 ($816), not 25% of $2000 ($500). The only way I'd be offered the retail price is if I bought the scooter outright from Medichair without ADP funding.

So, naturally, I phoned the ADP program to try and find out where they got the arbitrary price of $3264 from, where the extra money goes, and why they couldn't just cover 75% of the retail price. I spoke to Ian Lowe, the program coordinator for the ADP,(who, I found out later, used to sell scooters for Medichair and was trained by the guy who was selling me my scooter) and Lowe told me that they would absolutely cover the $2000 retail price and that $3264 was only the MAXIMUM amount that they would cover.

I went back to Medichair with this information and asked them to charge me the properly acceptable retail price and what they said was absolutely dumbfounding. What they said was, "We normally charge the maximum amount because it takes five months to receive the full payment from the government."

That means that until someone smart enough to call them on it came along, they have been forcing the customer to pay more just because the government takes a long time to pay them. Obviously, they should not be forcing the customer to take the financial hit, the customer has nothing to do with the delay of payment. If anything, Medichair should be asking ADP to expedite their approval and funding, so that the customers don't have to cover for the process.

At first, I felt extremely conflicted about calling them out because I was concerned that refusal to acquiesce to their mark-up would mean I wouldn't get the scooter that's vital to my ability to get around. Of course, I realized that's what Medichair and other dealers are counting on. They know just how dependent their customer base is, and that even if they decide not to get a scooter for the time being, chances are good that they'll come (literally) crawling back.

That's what pushes this practice way past just simply being taken advantage of by opportunistic, crooked sales people. This isn't just about selling a product, this is about selling a person's ability to move, and to play games with someone's right to move freely about their surroundings is a new level of screwjob.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

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