Last August, I got hit by a car while in my mobility scooter. The car wasn't going fast since it pulled out of a stop sign and didn't look in my direction before it hit me. After the accident, the battery drained fast. The batteries were replaced as part of the ICBC settlement. After the batteries were installed, they returned the scooter to me but didn't give any instructions about what I should've done to condition the batteries. When I noticed right away that according to the battery gauge, the battery was draining fast, I called Scooter City. Pam was the person with whom I was in contact. She told me I needed to charge it fully ten times, and it should be all good after that.
I did exactly what she told me. It didn't get better. I charged it ten more times. It didn't get better. Ten more times. Nothing. To be honest, I didn't want to bug Pam so much. But I wanted my battery to work too. I called Pam back and told her that the battery was draining much faster than it should be. She had it picked up. She called me back and told me that she had it tested, the battery is fine. She said it must be something that I'm doing. Maybe it's because I'm charging it in the garage. Yeah, maybe it is, I said. So I parked it inside my house. I plugged it where my water boiler is plugged in.
Alas, it was still draining the same way. I could go to the Dollar Tree, which is 2 km from my house, and back, and the scooter would be almost dead. 4 km. That's it for the range. Definitely not 30 km. But I put up with it.
A month ago, my scooter tipped backward on my ramp, 3 times before I learned my lesson to weigh it down with bricks on the front. The third time it tipped, it also tipped sideways. I called Pam to see if it needed to be taken in to have a look at for any reason. She said that it should because maybe the wires in the battery might be loose. Leslie was supposed to pick it up, but instead of doing that, she first opened the seat to take a look at the battery. She inspected the battery, said it looked okay, and closed it. She said she didn't need to take it in because it looked fine.
However, the couple weeks after she left, things only got much worse. In the last week, the battery drained bars per second unless I went more slowly. I called Pam on Wednesday. As soon as she got on the line, she said, "You should be speaking to Chris. I'm semi-retired."
I thought to myself, "Why is she telling me this? How is relevant to me? I mean, she's working now, so..." Not professional, in my opinion.
Anyway, she barely listened to me before quickly telling me they would be picking up my scooter the next morning.
Yesterday, another woman from Scooter City called me and told me as soon as I answered that my batteries were dead and that I had to pay $430 to install new batteries. As soon as I started to push back because I wanted to discuss all the trouble I've been having since September, she told me to hold and put Pam on the line.
Then Pam brought up the test that was done in December. I asked her to go back and describe the events that transpired in December. She said that when the scooter came in, both batteries had failed when they started the test. I said, "So right away, both batteries failed, even though I gave them to you on a full charge?" She said yes.
I said, "So right away, shouldn't that be a red flag? Doesn't that tell you that they're defective then? Because I charged them like you asked me to, and right away, they failed."
She told me that wasn't the point. I let her continue. She told me the mechanics charged it for two hours and brought it up to 8 more percent. They got it up to a percentage they were satisfied with, a percentage that passed. I remember Leslie leaving me with a piece of paper that was supposed to prove to me that the batteries were hunky dory. I told Pam that that's not fine to me. What that tells me is that they plugged the machine in to satisfy their need to tell me that it was fine. But when I use it, it's not fine. The battery always drained too fast. Pam kept telling me, "That's not the point." I was getting more and more enraged at her saying that. Because that was EXACTLY the point. And the customer was never more right, in this case. Her test is useless against real-life use. But she wouldn't budge.
This is what she ended up telling me: "I'm afraid to sell these batteries to you." Why? Because in the end she was gas lighting me. The failed batteries were MY FAULT, she told me. Yup. She said that my house and my electricity were to blame for the failed batteries.
Then she started tastelessly joking. "I don't want to have you spend $430 every three weeks. Or maybe I should have you spend $430 every three weeks. Hahaha." Yeah, I don't think that's funny.
I told her that I rely on this thing to do things in life, especially for my family.
I don't recommend Scooter City until Pam fully retires. read more