Consumers are allegedly being approached by shady sustainability advisers after customer data from bankrupt solar panel companies has ended up in the wrong hands, according to research by BNR. How the advisers obtained the data remains unclear. The information is presumed to be traded online.
A survey of customer review site Trustpilot shows a flood of complaints about aggressive telemarketing firms posing as sustainability advisers. Behind the practice are multiple sole proprietorships that operate under different trade names and use similar methods. The Consumers’ Association describes the practice as a “many-headed monster” because new small companies keep appearing.
The so-called advisers contact customers of bankrupt solar panel firms and claim they are taking over the service. Targets include customers of Zonvoornop, Bespaarmetjedak, JD Energy Systems, and Sunleaves Solar.
The firms also use other sales tactics. Sellers play on concerns about the end of the net-metering scheme. Starting next year, households will have to pay for surplus electricity they feed back into the grid. The advisers say a home battery is therefore necessary.
Voltrum and Green Consultancy are named most often as the companies behind the approach. At the insistence of the Consumers’ Association, Green Consultancy repaid 17,000 euros to victims. Complaints about that firm have since declined, a Consumers’ Association spokesperson said. “But we still receive many complaints about the telephone sales of energy advice by various companies.”
The Fraud Help Desk recognizes the phenomenon but cannot specify the exact number of reports. Homeowners’ association Vereniging Eigen Huis opened a reporting center this week for households that feel pressured, misled or insufficiently informed when being sold sustainability services.
The origin of the customer data remains unclear. “That is not clear to us,” a Fraud Help Desk spokesperson said. Even the trustees of the bankrupt solar panel companies are in the dark. “The customer file was not sold,” said Luciënne ter Haar, trustee overseeing the Zonvoornop bankruptcy and a lawyer at Van Zeijl Bijl Aartsen Advocaten. “It is completely unclear to me how Green Consultancy obtained customer data from Sunleaves Solar,” said Marlon Woisch, trustee and lawyer at KampsVanBaar Advocaten.
Rolf van Wegberg, associate professor of cybercrime at Delft University of Technology, suspects a data breach is the cause. “In recent years there have been various high-profile data breaches. Think of Odido and Essent. Criminals can piece all that data together and sell fairly complete profiles.” According to Van Wegberg, the information is then traded online in closed Telegram groups, for example.
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