{"id":91221,"date":"2025-08-21T11:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T01:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=91221"},"modified":"2025-08-26T09:53:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T00:23:45","slug":"hang-up-on-solar-telemarketers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/hang-up-on-solar-telemarketers\/","title":{"rendered":"Hang Up For Good On Solar Telemarketers Interrupting Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AWhile I don’t consider myself particularly wicked, I still get little rest.\u00a0 For example, on Friday night, I was relaxing with my family in sub-tropical Queensland when we were interrupted by a solar telemarketer who so blatantly breached industry standards I put the police onto him.<\/p>\n

How Do You Stop Solar Telemarketers Calling?<\/h2>\n

Anyone who’s picked up the phone only to be caught out by a cold caller selling solar, batteries, or anything else may want to know how they can cut the odds of it ever happening again.\u00a0 Fortunately, there are a few fixes, with the main one being to get on the Do Not Call Register.\u00a0 If a telemarketer does something that isn’t just annoying but illegal, such as not ending the call when requested, you can lodge an official complaint.\u00a0 Also, if you’re savvy enough to know your rights and remember to ask for their Australian Business Number at the start of the call, they may be smart enough to behave themselves.<\/p>\n

A Cold Call During A Hot Meal<\/h2>\n

We were having a family get-together and enjoying a succulent Chinese meal when we were interrupted by the ring of my mother’s mobile.\u00a0 My mum was busy collecting pieces of crunchy pork on her fork, so I answered the phone to save her the trouble, not realising what I was letting myself in for.<\/p>\n

It was a telemarketer telling me I could qualify for up to $5,000 in government rebates for solar.<\/p>\n

“Really?” I said.\u00a0 “Please tell me more.\u00a0 I want to hear all about it!”<\/p>\n

After answering a few simple questions, it turned out I was eligible for the government rebates.\u00a0 Talk about lucky!<\/p>\n

I would say this is the oldest trick in the book, except it was probably chiselled on stone tablets before books were invented.\u00a0 It’s a simple con: make a government incentive available to everyone appear exclusive to make it more desirable.\u00a0 In reality, the solar rebate<\/a> is about as non-exclusive as it gets.\u00a0 “Do you have a pulse and a roof?” is a very low bar to clear.<\/p>\n

The most interesting part of their spiel was saying the rebate was $5,000.\u00a0 The typical Australian can get over $33,000 in STCs<\/a> if they’re willing and able to install a 100 kilowatt system, so $5,000 seems low.\u00a0 But I guess they found they land more fish with a reasonable-sounding rebate.<\/p>\n

Now I knew their likely game, which would be getting people to sign up for solar and battery systems by pretending rebates available to everybody are some sort of special deal, I was tempted to give the salesperson an earful.\u00a0 But I held back.\u00a0 I was having a hard time understanding his accent, and I had no idea where he was calling from.\u00a0 Maybe he was just some poor guy in a developing country trying to make money for his family.\u00a0 A family that might only be able to dream of the sort of succulent Chinese meal I was currently missing out on.\u00a0 So, rather than blasting him with what I thought of his unethical sales tactics, I just said, “Bye!” and hung up.<\/p>\n

\"Ronald

This is very stylised, but basically what happened when I was called by “must-have-rebaters”.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back For A Second Serving<\/h2>\n

But that was not the end of it.\u00a0 I hadn’t gotten far into a pile of Mongolian beef on egg-infested rice when they rang again.\u00a0 This time, I didn’t waste time and simply said, “Remove our number from your list and never call again.”<\/p>\n

Rather than apologising and hanging up, the salesperson said, “But you’re not giving me a chance…”<\/p>\n

That was the wrong thing to say.\u00a0 Those seven words put his company in breach of the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017<\/a>.\u00a0 I’m not a lawyer, but Section 13 of Part 2 on terminating a call says:<\/p>\n

“(1) A caller must immediately terminate a call, or ensure that a call is immediately terminated, if:<\/em>…<\/p>\n

…(b) the call recipient asks for the call to be terminated or otherwise indicates that the call recipient does not want the call to continue.<\/em>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s nothing in there about never calling again, but it was worth a try.<\/p>\n

Solar Telemarketers Can Face Big Fines<\/h2>\n

By not hanging up, he was potentially creating a major problem for his company, as the Australian Communications and Media Authority<\/a> (ACMA) can punish breaches of the standard with everything from formal warnings to fines of millions of dollars.\u00a0 As an example, this year the\u00a0 TAB was fined $4 million for spam<\/a>, and I don’t mean the spiced ham variety.\u00a0 A couple of solar telemarketers fined for breaches are:<\/p>\n