The regulator ACM has received hundreds of complaints in the past six months about fraudulent telephone sellers of home batteries. The sellers put people under pressure to sign a digital signature. This often involves large sums of money, which must be repaid via a loan.
The telephone sellers use different company names or say they are calling on behalf of an energy supplier. As a result, it is often unclear to customers which company called them.
During the calls, people are pressured to sign for a non-committal offer or appointment. Later it turns out that they have signed a purchase agreement involving amounts of tens of thousands of euros.
The ACM advises those who are called to end the conversation or record it. This way they can listen back to know what they actually agreed to. Anyone who records the conversation should report this to the telephone seller, who may not refuse this.
Consumers may always terminate a purchase contract within fourteen days if they have made the purchase via the internet or telephone. If they were not informed of this possibility during their purchase, they even have a year to cancel the contract. In case of deception, you can always annul the contract.
ACM states that home batteries can be interesting for households to store self-generated electricity. But the regulator adds that these are complicated products that you should not purchase via a phone call.