Aggressive door-to-door salesmen have been making the rounds here again, and a resident was willing to speak on the record about them.
The Advertiser received two calls in the past week about National Home Services, a company that leases hot water heaters. Those calls were not complimentary.
Leeane Perry was willing to have her name published. She said she was approached at her home on Garafraxa Street by a salesman about a new heater and hot water system.
She said the man told her he had come to Canada two months earlier from India, and when saw the home’s basement, he immediately told her that her furnace is illegal.
Perry said in the interview her husband had installed furnaces for a living, their furnace is only two years old, and it definitely is not illegal.
She asked the salesman if he was in Canada only two months, how would he know it was illegal. She said he man replied that he was trained.
She did arrange to hire the company for some work. An installer arrived and told her she needed a new chimney liner. She arranged to have the installer return at another set time, and three hours after he did not arrive, she phoned to complain. She said the person who answered hung up on her. She cancelled the contract.
New Ontario regulations allow people to cancel contracts for up to ten days after they sign them, with no penalty.
But Perry is worried for other people. She said the salesman told her he had made many sales to seniors in the community.
She said, “The poor seniors. That’s what I feel bad about.”
A search on the internet indicated that the Better Business Bureau had received over 70 complaints about National Home Services, and in the past year, 50 of those had been resolved.
The company was also the subject of a column in 2008 in the Toronto Star.
“National Home Services – part of Universal Energy Corp. – is making sales pitches to homeowners who rent water heaters from Direct Energy,” wrote Personal Finance Columnist Ellen Roseman.
Many of the tactics she described in that column were similar to what Perry experienced in Fergus.
The Advertiser contacted National Home Services. The first person stated he was not permitted to give his full name, but would pass along the interview request.
Crystal O’Donnell, of National Home Services, later called back to state that the company would take only written questions by email and would answer them by deadline. The Advertiser complied with questions by email, but the deadline passed without a response.
