Door-to-door sales can promote home maintenance services, such as pest control, home or garden maintenance, and even utilities like electricity and telephone services. Many legitimate business sell things by going door-to-door, however some scammers also use this approach.

Door-to-door sales are normally uninvited. Sometimes the salesperson just turns up at your door, sometimes they will be in your home because you booked an appointment with their sales organisation after receiving their ad in your letterbox.

In either case, salespeople are not visitors in your home - they are there to get you to hand over your money to them. By law they must leave when you tell them.

Even in the case of genuine businesses and products, unscrupulous operators can still act illegally to the detriment of other people. States and territories have specific laws about door-to-door sales, including ‘cooling-off’ periods that apply in many cases (where you can change your mind and request your money back).

Door-to-door scams involve promoting goods or services that are not delivered or are of a very poor quality. Scammers can also bill you for work that you did not agree to. The scammers often claim they will provide home maintenance like roofing or gardening services. Sometimes scammers pretend to conduct a survey so they can get your personal details or to disguise their sales pitch until they have been talking to you for a while.

Door-to-door scammers will not give you value for your money. Their money-back guarantees will turn out to be useless. You stand to lose your money. At worst, a door-knocker’s real purpose could be to prepare for a subsequent break-in into your home.

Warning signs

• The person might arrive very late at night or visit you again after you have said no.
• The person does not show you any personal identification or give you any written quotes, contract information or receipts
• The person might demand that you decide to accept their offer on the spot.
• Scammers will ask you for either a deposit or full payment and want you to pay in cash or by credit card.
• The person will not want to receive a cheque (because you may be able to cancel a cheque later if things go wrong).
• The person will fail to tell you about your legal rights, including any cooling-off period that applies in some states of Australia (be aware that a cooling-off period does not apply in NSW or Victoria if you pay by cash or cheque)