I felt pressured by a door-to-door salesperson. What can I do?
If you buy, lease, rent, or finance products or services from a door-to-door salesperson, there are laws to protect you from “unfair practices”. The rules apply if the total charges are more than $50 before taxes.
A door-to-door salesperson is someone who comes to your home and tries to sell you something. Some examples are:
- services for your home, like snow removal, roofing services, or security services
- products for your home, like kitchen knives
Starting March 1, 2018, sellers are not allowed to sell the following things at your home unless you invited them into your home for that purpose:
- furnaces
- air conditioners
- air cleaners
- air purifiers
- water heaters
- water treatment devices
- water purifiers
- water filters
- water softeners
- duct cleaning services
- any product or service that does the job of any of the above, like an HVAC system
The law calls these prescribed products and services.
A door-to-door salesperson is not allowed to use unfair practices to make you to buy their product or service. For example, sellers must not mislead or pressure you to buy products or services that you don't need or cannot afford. And they are not allowed to charge you more than what is reasonable.
If the salesperson used an unfair practice, you can cancel the contract at any time up to one year after you made the agreement.
If you have questions or concerns about a door-to-door salesperson that you have talked to or bought something from, call Consumer Protection Ontario at:
- 416-326-8800 (Toronto area) or toll-free at 1-800-889-9768
- TTY: 416-229-6086 (Toronto area) or 1-877-666-6545
Energy contracts
Energy retailers are companies that offer contracts for electricity or natural gas. Door-to-door energy retailers must follow different rules.
For information about these rules and what you can do if you have problems with energy retailers, visit the Ontario Energy Board website or call 1-877-632-2727.
