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Dublin: 15 °C Sunday 19 May, 2013

Saorview warns of door-to-door TV ‘sales’ scam

The free digital TV service advises customers that they don’t offer door-to-door sales, and warns people about visitors.

Image: futureatlas.com via Flickr

THE FREE DIGITAL TV service Saorview has issued a public notice advising people to be wary of door-to-door sales people misrepresenting themselves as sales agents for the service.

Saorview, which is fully owned by a subsidiary of RTÉ, said neither itself nor RTÉ had commissioned or endorsed any door-to-door sales, and had not agreed to allow its logo be used by direct sales companies.

“We are aware of a small number of people misrepresenting themselves as employees of RTÉ or Saorview,” a notice published on the service’s website read.

“Some of these people may be wearing clothing with the RTÉ or Saorview logos… these people are not employees or agents of RTÉ or Saorview.”

While other TV providers do engage in door-to-door sales, these salespersons are not permitted to display either of the two logos on their branding or vehicles.

“As with any stranger appearing on your doorstep, please exercise caution when dealing with any person offering to install a set-top-box, or suggesting you need a new aerial installation,” the notice read.

The majority of homes will already have an aerial compatible with receiving digital TV signals, though many will need to upgrade their TV sets or to purchase a set-top box to make their TVs compatible with the new generation of broadcasts.

“Our advice when choosing an aerial installer is to ask friends or neighbours for a recommendation or to choose one from one of the three recognised registration bodies on our website,” Saorview said.

The service said it will take appropriate action against anyone “misusing” either the Saorview or RTÉ brands to secure their own sales.

Saorview is officially tasked with ensuring that the Irish population is prepared for a switchover to digital TV in advance of analogue broadcasting services being discontinued.

It is expected that analogue broadcasts will be turned off in Ireland late next year, in line with the majority of other European countries.

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Comments (12 Comments)

  • Daire 29/09/11 #

    Actually, just out of curiosity, if analogue broadcasts are turned off, and the only TV you have in the house is one that is incapable of receiving digital broadcasts and you have no means or equipment in the house to receive digital broadcasts, you can now refuse to pay your TV license, right ?

    Reply
  • We have a house rule: Never buy anything at the door.

    Reply
  • made 29/09/11 #

    My brother lived in an area that couldn’t receive RTE, a tv licence inspector came to his door and my brother told him that he couldn’t receive Rte but the inspector told him that doesn’t matter as long as you have a tv in the house you have to have a tv licence.

    Reply
  • unfortunately if you have a device capable of receiving a tv signal you need a tv licence. if you just play computer games on your tv you still need a licence.

    Reply
  • I took a look at the system that their using and it’s frankly rubbish ,in the UK you get 78 tv and about 30 radio stations and the boxes start at about £20 .Here they have an expensive box and a couple of extra stations, RTE have retained control so no chance of any future channels ie Sky news or UTV being allowed.Just get a satellite box for a similar cost .

    Reply
    • RTE’s service uses the better MPEG4 standard, the UK are MPEG2. I’d rather pay more for better equipment. RTE will also open up the platform for other UK channels in the future. This thing is only a few short years in existence here, give it a chance to prosper. It will be good. Think of all the extra bandwidth freed up for broadband!

      Reply
  • I got a visit of one of these shams and I had to explain to him you can’t get sky sports on saor view he then told me while keeping a straight face that BBC and rte are now showing live premiership matches I replied "no there not" to which he said "yes they are" this went back and forth for a couple of minutes, he then went on to explain for a once of payment of â

    Reply
  • I think its really unfair the way the media are labelling the door.to door sales people as scam artists and con men. Any one who works in sales is told what to say and what to sell but I can guarantee you that they have not been aware that selling this service was a scam. I know someone who was briefly employed by one of the offending companies and he was lead to believe by his bosses that it was legit. Instead ofj attacking the unfortunate people who have no choice but to do a job like this we should be gunning for the scum that exploit the workers and the consumers

    Reply
  • There’s a lot of this going on out there I’m afraid. I know of one company in particular (I can’t name names of course), who send sales agents around door-to-door offering Saorview amongst other products and services. Their tactics are particularly aggressive and intimidating, and as a previous comment reported, they tell bare-faced lies at the door.

    The same company claimed to sell on behalf of Airtricity and guaranteed that prices would not increase over the next twelve months. Lo and behold, Airtricity increased prices a month later (Airtricity had given no such price guarantee).

    If the product or service is legitimate, the sales agent will have no problem with you contacting the likes of Saorview or Airtricity directly to connect. These spurious agents do however have a problem with this, and promise a better price at the door. With this in mind, they are certainly not legitimate!

    Reply

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