Horrendous Experience with Kardinal Independent Living, a mobility aid Retailer in Worthing, Sussex

M1978

Hello all
I am posting because I have had a nightmare with the above company having purchased a second hand TGA Mobility Scooter of them in July last year. I needed an all terrain scooter and this one cost me £2600.
I couldn’t possibly explain all that happened here, but as soon as it was delivered, there were things wrong with it (most worryingly one of the breaks wasn’t working at all and the scooter kept stopping dead for no reason….Not ideal for Road travel)!
Despite numerous attempts at contacting the M.D who had sold me the scooter, it wasn’t until I called in September asking to speak with somebody else that I was able to report the faults. I also purchased insurance through Kardinal when I bought the scooter in July but was repeatedly stalled in my attempts to have the insurance documents sent to me. When I finally insisted that they were in October, it turned out that the insurance had only been purchased on the same day it was emailed to me. 

Since then, despite promises that a new head unit would fix the issues I was expediencing and that I would be contacted as soon as it had arrived, no attempt was made to repair the scooter until February when they said they still didn’t have the part and were therefore going to put in a second hand part instead. 

By this time I had contacted Trading Standards, and the working brake had also failed causing me to have a crash. It was delivered back still broken and shortly after this, the replacement head unit display stopped working, as did what I later found out to be the wrong charger for the battery. 

I have since been trying to receive a full refund for the scooter and have recently sent a letter before court action. Kardinal have not responded to any of my correspondence since they withdrew from a meeting they had suggested happen in April whereby the aim was to resolve the issues I had had. I have consequently been left with an unusable scooter and not enough money or storage space to replace it. 
I am posting this for 2 reasons, firstly to see if anybody else has had a similar experience and, if so, to find out what action they took and whether there is any organisation out there that could support me in what has been - and continues to be - a hugely time consuming and very distressing experience. Secondly to warn anybody in the Sussex area of my experience with this company as I suspect that I am not the only person they have done this to.

Thank you in advance to anybody who can help me with this. 

Alex_Alumni

Hello and welcome @M1978 and thank you for taking the time to share your recent expeirence of Kardinal with the community here. I hope the forum can be a friendly and supportive place for you. 

I'm so sorry to hear what happened, and can easily understand how distressing it must be, to have something which is supposed to provide independence actually be broken and faulty. It's clear you've been let down, and it's caused a lot of stress too. 

While I purchased my current wheelchair in the Sussex area, it was not with Kardinal Independent Living, but I'm sure your post will be incredibly helpful to any members based there, who might be looking into purchasing a chair for example. 

I'm not sure of any organisation which could help support you with this, but perhaps other members can share their thoughts. I've marked your post as unanswered to help with that. 

Can you tell me if you receive the enhanced rate of PIP at all? You may be able to look into leasing a wheelchair or powerchair through the Motability scheme.

Please do keep us up to date with how you get on, and ask if there's anything you feel we could help further with

Alex

Dee2uk

Hi, I am so sorry about your rotten experience, all I can suggest is that in future go onto the website, Trust pilot, it gives you other people's advise on any retailers you need to know about, it's what I do now after a bad experience, much luck to you hun 🥰