Door to Door sales ripping off elderly

Mr. Peri Peri

Mr. Peri Peri

Mr. Peri Peri

Associate
Joined
23 May 2011
Posts
355
Location
Surrey
We all hear horror stories of elderly people being ripped off by door to door sales people for all sorts and now it appears to have happened to my grandfather who suffers from dementia.

Yesterday a company visited him and have managed to get him to sign a contract for £2,000 to have his patio cleaned.

Is there any way out of this now it has been signed? Appreciate any advice.
 
I believe by Law you have 14 days to change your mind (as long as no work has been done). but if he hasn't paid a penny, then just don't. if they threaten to take him to court over it, no judge would rule in the favour of a door to door salesman getting and elderly, ill person to sign something without getting it checked over by someone else first.
 
Yeh, report them to the police, whatever you do don't give them a penny.

Personally I'd threaten them with legal action as well, see if they will agree to a settlement of "sod off and we won't sue".
 
If the money hasn't come out of the bank yet, can the bank do anything to block the payment?.

Personally, I think door to door selling should be illegal - the rest of the business world should follow the suit of the energy companies which ended door to door sales (well almost all of them, with SSE doing it first).

It has too much room for abuse of the vulnerable or people with fake ID's gaining access to homes - besides, it's an intrusion of privacy.
 
Thanks guys.

Just found this on Which.

"If the contract was made at home
If you enter into a contract at home, your place of work or during an excursion arranged by the trader, the 'Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008' give you a seven-day cooling-off period during which you can cancel.

There are some contracts these regulations don't apply to including:

* Things worth less than £35
* Items delivered by a rounds person such as newspapers and milk
* Contracts for the sale, construction or rental of property."

So looks like it can be sorted. Thanks again
 
Contract isn't valid anyway as it was signed by someone of an 'unfit' mind. As your granddad has dementia no contract he signs will be enforceable.

http://www.inbrief.co.uk/contract-law/contract-law-capacity-mental-disability.htm

Capacity – Mental disability

The law provides protection for those who make contracts while under some mental disability. There are of course, degrees of mental disability, unlike the position in relation to minors, where the person is either under 18 or over 18. English contract law recognises three categories.

Mental Capacity Act 2005

First there are those whose mental state is such that their affairs are under the control of the court, by virtue of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Since the court effectively takes over the individual’s power to make contracts, any contracts purported to be made personally by the individual will be unenforceable against him or her.
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Wait for them to come and do the work and set them on fire.

Serious response: Do as much as you can to put these guys out of "business", for the sake of everyone else, now you have a case against them.
 
Make the call to the people, inform them he has dementia and he also wishes to cancel the contract under his statutory rights.

Remove their implied right to access to the property.

Problem you will find is its gypos who will turn up mob handed and demand the money with menaces.
 
makes me sick.

recently around our village there has been several houses where the roof has been cleaned and spray painted. they came around to us and i asked how much. after telling me various BS like our house has moss on the roof but the other facing house doesnt (front of our house is north facing, other is south facing!! moron) and that 'look at the gutter, you can see on one side of the roof the tiles are lower, they are slipping' - yeah, because a gutter needs to run at a slight angle for the water.

he wanted 4k but was doing a special offer of 2k. i told him to jog on as i work in construction and i know its all BS.

as you say, it should be illegal. i now have a 'no cold callers or sales people' type sign and have got my M&D to get one too. they seem to target villages due to the amount of elderly people around.
 
Door to door sales should be illegal anyway, it's not like we don't get exposed to enough advertising already.

To quote the great Philip J Fry.

"Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree." - Fry.
 
Mr. Peri Peri said:
We all hear horror stories of elderly people being ripped off by door to door sales people for all sorts and now it appears to have happened to my grandfather who suffers from dementia.

Yesterday a company visited him and have managed to get him to sign a contract for £2,000 to have his patio cleaned.

Is there any way out of this now it has been signed? Appreciate any advice.
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Sorry to hear this, but I just wanted to say that whilst trying to earn some cash during the summer I took a job as door to door and charity sales person during my Uni days.

The tactics they teach you and expect you to use even if they are a registered charity organisation is nothing short of taking advantage of the lonely, elderly, unemployed and mentaly challenged people. It's ****ing disgusting!

These places have no empahy whatsoever and expect you to meet targets to gain extra commission. As I am a person of honour and integrity and add to the fact they wanted to prey on innocent people and those especially in the Asian community I stood up to these scumbags and kicked off with the manager the next day in front of everyone.

Needless to say I only lasted 2 days in the job, but at least I had my say and left with m head held high.

Anyone who comes to my house even if it's religious charities I tell them to **** off!
 
Door to door sales and charity mugging should be made illegal in my opinion. It's not as if you don't already get enough of this through the post, the phone (despite being TPS registered), TV, radio and so forth. At least let us have some small measure of peace in our own homes for Christ's sake. :mad:
 
not only door to door, but those annoying people that stop you in the street and try to get you to sign up for stuff. its wrong. should all be banned. im pretty sure 99.99999999% of people will know how to find the information for someone to do the job/charity if they want to, the reason they haven't? because they don't want to! so you bashing on my door or stopping me in the street isn't going to change that :mad:
 
The Funktopus said:
Door to door sales and charity mugging should be made illegal in my opinion. It's not as if you don't already get enough of this through the post, the phone (despite being TPS registered), TV, radio and so forth. At least let us have some small measure of peace in our own homes for Christ's sake. :mad:
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Agree 100% I wish I could "release the hounds" on them with no comeback to be honest.
 
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