WELDON SPRING, Mo. – Air Force veteran Bill Muckerman installed his Acorn Stairlift three years ago, costing him more than $10,000.
“I think the installation wasn’t as good as it could’ve been at all. I had troubles with it immediately and I’ve had a lot of trouble with it,” he said.
He has saved a stack of service orders for things ranging from the machine breaking down to running too slowly. He had receipts for 10 service orders over the past three years. That work has been covered by a warranty that Muckerman purchased with his stairlift.
“I paid the $800. They sent somebody out here and it was basically the same thing,” he said.
He says right now, the machine does not work at all and it has not for the past few weeks. Before that, he says, it was slow or would stop multiple times. Those sudden stops have made him fall in the past.
Muckerman says his local fire department even looked at it.
“If you’ve got a fire, you need a minute 30 seconds to get out for sure. Like I say, it takes over two minutes. If it’s stopping, it’ll be up over three minutes, and then four minutes,” Muckerman said.
“The stairlift can only go as fast as it can go. It is a medical device. It is a safety device. It’s not going to be something that zooms you up and down the stairs,” Acorn Stairlifts Technical Support Supervisor Adam Rantanen said.
Rantanen says almost all of Muckerman’s service requests were related to the speed, but that the stairlift itself was not broken.
“Each one of those transitions will slow the lift down. The lift has to level itself and stay at a certain level as it goes up and down the stairs,” Rantanen said of the complexity of Muckerman’s stairlift, which has a landing halfway up.
Muckerman is not alone with his complaints though. The Better Business Bureau’s website says it has fielded 221 complaints in the past three years involving Acorn Stairlift.
Acorn Stairlifts does have an A+ rating with the BBB and does respond to the complaints on the website. Many of them are repair and service issues like Muckerman’s.
“We do want to find a permanent resolution with him. We’re happy to go out on Tuesday. We’re not going to charge him for that visit,” Rantanen said.
A technician is scheduled to go to Muckerman’s home on Tuesday. The company is offering the service visit for free, despite Muckerman letting his warranty expire.
“I think I’ve gotten taken to the cleaners. I am very disappointed. I’m sorry that I didn’t put it in myself,” Muckerman said.
He says he just wants his lift to work consistently.
