Mississauga councillor seeks province-wide ban on door-to-door sales

Councillor Karen Ras said she herself has had to chase pushy salesman off her property.

“I used to work in the electricity sector and I know they’ve been very aggressive for many years,” she explained. Ras’ motion would only apply to home services like water filtration – not charities.

“People are very trusting here and we need to protect our vulnerable citizens. And this is hopefully one way of trying to address that,” she told Global News.

In early March Isaac Rudik was experiencing both the joy and stress of moving into his new home in Vaughan.

“It’s hectic, it’s crazy. There are boxes everywhere,” he said. “You’re dealing with movers, you’re dealing with lawyers.”

It was at this precise stressful state he says a man claiming to be from Enbridge knocked on their door and told his girlfriend, who lives with him, that their home’s water heater needed to be replaced.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: It was at this precise stressful state he says a man claiming to be from Enbridge knocked on their door and told his girlfriend, who lives with him, that their home's water heater needed to be replaced.

“He said this is too dangerous, and we have a service and we’ll upgrade it at no charge,” explained Rudik.

The couple agreed, pressured by what Rudik describes as a forceful approach.

“All they wanted me to do was sign; they didn’t even want me to put dates.”

Rudik was also persuaded by the level of knowledge the apparent salesman had of their new home and the circumstances. “They knew our closing date, knew the names of the previous owners,  they knew that we were moving in,” he said. The forms provided by the salesman were labelled Ontario Home Services.

Tracie Sommer, Rudik’s girlfriend, also says someone pretending to be her called their previous energy provider to cancel their service and resign with another provider.

“It’s very weird having someone pretending to be you and not be questioned is a little scary,” she told Global News.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's very weird having someone pretending to be you and not be questioned is a little scary," she told Global News.

“And they had the opportunity to change my phone number and they didn’t. If they did we never would have known about this.”

Ontario Home Services said they take complaints seriously and tried numerous times to contact Tracie. They did not comment directly on the phone call and it’s unclear who placed it,  but a recording provided by the couple reveals a distinctly different female voice identifying herself as “Stacie Sommer.”

In a statement to Global News the company wrote, “Ontario Home Services (OHS) recognizes that sometimes customers feel they have not received the services that they have expected. In this sense OHS encourages all feedback from customers both positive and negative and endeavours to be as clear as possible in all of its dealings with customers. OHS has communicated with the homeowner and has resolved this matter to their satisfaction.”

Rudik and his girlfriend have started an online petition asking for a province-wide ban on door-to-door sales in home services.

“We’ve seen the stories but were like, ‘how did this happen to us?’ We were just in shock.”

He’s also encouraging frustrated consumers to share their stories of pushy door-to-door salesman on Twitter using the hashtag #StopTheKnock.