THE ‘ripping off’ of an Oswestry pensioner over solar panels has prompted a Shropshire firm to issue a warning over dodgy dealers.

Shrewsbury-based Solar PV Battery Systems made the call this week after they were contacted by an older gentleman who had been told that the piece of kit that converts solar power into electricity was faulty through a cold call.

The caller, according to a spokesman from Solar PV, said the inverter was only working at half capacity and that the London-based company quotes nearly three times the actual costs to replace and install a new one.

READ MORE: Solar farm to be built on old 'waste mountain' in Oswestry

So now homeowners with solar panels in Oswestry and throughout north Shropshire are being advised to ignore cold calls from a company offering a “free system health check” and speak to a member of their family first.

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A Solar PV spokesman said the cold-caller was acting ‘despicably’ and added the company was compelled to act after receiving the call.

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

“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% 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 around to check the system on Friday, only to find that the system was operating perfectly and with no faults.

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“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.”

For more about Solar PV, head to https://solarpvbatterysystems.com/