Householders warned of solar panel scam after Oswestry pensioner targeted

Shrewsbury based Solar PV Battery Systems said homeowners with Solar Panels in Oswestry and throughout Shropshire are advised to ignore cold calls from a company offering a “free system health check” and speak to a member of their family first, after the vulnerable Oswestry pensioner had a lucky escape.

The pensioner, a man in his 80s who only last year lost his wife and has also recently been seriously ill, was last week called out of the blue by a company offering the “free service” whilst also falsely claiming his original installer was no longer trading.

Explaining the scam, a representative from Shrewsbury based Solar PV Battery Systems, said: ‘We were contacted by the elderly gentleman from Oswestry who informed us he had a visit from a London based company who had earlier called him out of the blue and offered a free system health check on his Solar PV system ‘as they were in the area'.

“During the visit by the rogue company he was informed his solar inverter was only working to 50 per cent of its capacity and that he required a new one which would cost him just under £3,000 - almost three times what a standard replacement inverter should be.

“Thankfully our client had the sense to call us first and we sent an engineer round to check the system on Friday, only to find that the system was operating perfectly and with no faults.

“This is a despicable breach of trust to an elderly vulnerable man who has been through enough recently, unfortunately this is not the first time we have been aware of this type of scam and urge anyone with Solar panels to contact their original installer or a member of their family in the first instance.”