Cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up for TPS
Ideal Solar Solutions Ltd are based in Derby. They rang me at 10.27 this morning to try and sell me something, or at least to say that they were in the area on Monday and it would be good if they could arrange to come around to see me.
Actually they wanted to see both meself and Anne. Experience must tell them that decisions on big capital spend items such as solar panels are not made alone.
Unfortunately for them Anne was not around but also unfortunately I recorded the whole conversation – just to make sure that I got the name of the company right etc.
Their website is here. It’s got all their contact details.
Thing is they shouldn’t be calling me. I told them that I was signed up to the Telephone Preference Service and that I would be reporting them to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
They and their ilk are a blight on society. I realise that they are trying to earn a quid but don’t they understand how difficult it is to make sales with cold calling like this. Far better they did a sensible Google Adwords campaign and attracted people actually looking for solar panels. It would meant that the poor telephone sales girl who was clearly reading from a not particularly well written script didn’t have to endure days of fruitless calling speaking to people who didn’t want to talk to her and who might report her employers to the ICO.
When calling me they withheld their number but if you need solar panels you can call them on 0844 472 2941. It’s on their website. Give em a ring. They haven’t asked you to call but I’m sure they won’t mind.
I note that they carry the logo of the CPA (Consumer Protection Association). The CPA needs to update its Code of Practice, assuming they have one – I couldn’t find it on their site, to include not calling people who are signed up with the TPS.
The recording of the call is here if you are interested. They didn’t ask me to record it but there again I didn’t ask them to call me. It’s a bit noisy but hey… I was recording off the speakerphone of a dect phone. You do hear the occasional ping – it’s my Chromebook – I was in the middle of a hangout with my daughter.
9 replies on “A cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up with the TPS”
Oddly this happen to me not so long ago – after listening to the man for ten minutes with him taking a breath and me not being to get a word in. I tried to explain to him that we lived in a ground floor maisonette which is a leasehold property. Sadly this kind of issue was not on his script, and he he carried on with his sales pitch.
BE
I had a similar issue with Ideal Solar Solutions. They somehow managed to ring me despite my being registered with the TPS.
I had quite a long chat with the lady, probably 15 minutes at least. I find it makes me feel better about the call if I can get my own back by wasting a bit of their time. This company are definitely not one of those companies that hang up just because the customer doesn’t want to talk about Solar Panels. Also, as you identified they are quite open about who they are which makes it very easy to get the complaint in.
I tried to find out who supplies them with their list of numbers to cold call. However unfortunately she didn’t want to tell me this, nor have they subsequently managed to reply to any of the emails I have sent them about it. I am sure they are very busy people so I will keep trying.
This is a shame because I have found in the past that contacting the people who actually supply cold callers with their data is a much better approach than hassling the companies themselves.
There are some of these marketing companies who unfortunately aren’t able to understand the simple fact that registering with TPS means that you don’t want any cold calls under any circumstances. They will make absurd excuses, for example “but even though we knew you are registered with TPS we noticed that you didn’t tick an opt out box when taking out insurance back in 2003”.
Most of these companies will delete your information if you request it. If you don’t get that done then they are simply going to supply it to more and more companies like Ideal Solar Solutions.
You should complain about them to the ICO
I always do that as a matter of course.
I must say as someone who has worked in telesales in the past, that your number being put through onto the system of the company is not of fault to the company themselves. The company will buy data from uk datahouse. This frequently seems to not be screened sufficiently for people on the tps. The company would always be happy to take you off their system. May i also advise you that you have to sign up with the telephone preference service every 6 months to avoid your data from being sold again. This is the best advice i can offer you. I do have to say that after listening to your call you did handle the situation well and did not make the girl feel awful about doing her job. Which is a matter of fact the majority of the time. They are doing a job for which they get paid to earn money for their own bills. I understand that cold calls can be a nuisance but reporting the company does very little as legally they have done nothing wrong your data has been sold to them. I would advise tackling this issue from the top. Kind Regards
Thanks Jade
You have to understand that this is a highly emotive subject for many. People don’t want the calls – even those that may notionally be legit. There should be an easier way of stopping them.
Me too!
Just had call from ‘Kyle’, who not only started calling me Mr Redding (not my name) part-way through his monotribe, but also hung up without giving me a chance to ask him to remove my number form his database, or not to call me again.
Because you have posted the company number, I immediately called them and soke to a helpful telephonist. She could not put me through to Kyle or anyone in a responsible position since they were all in meetings, but would ask the telesales manager to call me back asap. That was at about 10;25 this morning. I await his/her callback. I told her I shall be complaining to the TPS.
Thanks for making your post Trefor – very helpful.
Had a visit from this company, the sales guy gave me a price which was £9,200 for 10 panels which included a Lithium battery and inverter.
The premise for their calculation on savings was a ludicrous inflation of 10% year on year in electricity bills!!, their area manager then offered a discount if we could install by a certain date in two weeks time (sound familiar?) so the price was then reduced to £7,800 as an incentive, they asked me how long I needed to consider, I said a week but they rang me back the next day offering the same system for £5,800. It would have been installed in one day, I did a little digging around and found that the panels are on the market for around £3,000 and I couldnt see the battery, inverter, feed meter, and intallation costs of £2,800 justified. The payback period I calculated would be around 12 years so I thought that investments would give a better return elsewhere. I have actually reduced my electricity costs by shopping around, reduced electricity consumption by utilising l.e.d lamps in my home (they use 40% less electricity), removing stand by on electrical items and investing in triple glazing. So far I have not been disappointed. I may revisit Solar energy in the future but my advice to others if they think that this is the way forward is to get more than one quote and shop around.
I received a sales call from them 3 days ago and reported them to the TPS who have written to them. They didn’t say the name of the company but did not withhold the number and TPS have told me it was this company.
I have dealt with a few of these in my time but this one was unbelievable. I immediately told them that my number was registered with TPS and the answer I got back was “you know that’s not true, you are lying”!
How to make friends and influence people eh?