Saturday 22 May 2010

The Pain Clinic, London 020 8619 0071

My elderly mother has recently had an appointment at the hospital regarding arthritic pain that she has in her back and legs. The hospital said they have referred her to the pain clinic and they will be in touch with her to arrange an appointment.

Out of the blue my mother received a phone call from "the pain clinic" and the man went to great lengths to tell her all about these tablets that would stop the pain. He knew her name and kept on reassuring her that the tablets would work. She started getting flustered especially when he wanted her credit card details as she kept insisting that if she bought any tablets then she would pay by cash. My mother is 83 years of age. She handed the phone over to her husband (who is 94 years of age) and he ended up paying nearly £200 for tablets using his debit card because if it helped her then he was willing to pay anything for her.

Please note - they are not wealthy and they are living on their pensions! £200 is a hell of a lot of money for them to have to pay out for tablets.

To date no tablets have arrived but at least the phone number was not withheld so she was able to do 1471 and write the number down. She has now given this phone number to her doctor so he can warn his other elderly patients.

Now I don't know who this Pain Clinic is and perhaps they will dispatch some tablets but any company that uses hard sell to confuse elderly people and make them part with nearly £200 need shooting! That is being polite - I could think of a lot of other things I would like to have done to them.

2 comments:

Bigastroandbeyond said...

That is disgraceful. How despicable for anyone to take advantage of the elderly in that way. Surely, if she needed pain killers, the doctor would have prescribed them and she would get them free.

Maz said...

I know. I told her that if the real pain clinic had phoned her it would have been to make an appointment to see her and if she needed any tablets then they would have prescribed them. Unfortunately she just feels foolish now and so won't do anything about it. It leaves me wondering how they got her name, phone number and knew about her pain though!