French heat pump firm fined €460,000 for home cold calling despite ban

A company selling eco-friendly home renovation services has been fined €460,000 for cold calling hundreds of thousands of homes despite being banned from doing so.

Since September 2020, it has been illegal for businesses selling products such as heat pumps or solar panels to make unsolicited calls to households in France, even if their phone number is not included on the anti-cold calling list Bloctel.

Now, these businesses may only make calls to customers with whom they already have a contractual agreement.

The ban came into force following accusations that companies were harassing potential clients by phone, with some people claiming that they were being called up to 20 times a day.

There were also complaints that the products being sold were not up to standard, and that low-income homeowners were being offered renovations on their outside walls for just €1, with the cost apparently subsidised by a government scheme.

The work then carried out was not up to standard, and often necessitated further, more expensive repairs.

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In spite of this, Almatys, which sells energy-efficient devices such as heat pumps, called several hundred thousand people between October and November 2020.

The penalty was issued by consumer protection service Direction départemental de la protection des populations d’Ille-et-Vilaine, who also fined solar panel company Nrgie Conseil €65,000 for cold calling tens of thousands of people.

Over the course of 2020, competition regulator Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) inspected more than 1,500 businesses to ensure that they were observing rules surrounding cold calls.

These enquiries led to 108 companies being fined for failing to respect the anti-cold calling phone number lists in place. The penalties handed out totalled €4.3million, twice as much as in the previous year.

People who buy products or services from cold callers while unaware of the ban in place for eco-friendly renovation services can initiate legal proceedings before a legal judge in order to cancel their contract.

Those who have received cold calls from any company offering such renovation services should report them to the French government platform SignalConso.

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