Which? has reported that Dyson is warning customers to be wary of a scam involving bogus companies offering vacuum cleaner servicing whilst masquerading as official Dyson engineers.
Around 760 Dyson owners have been conned into paying up to £150 for a vacuum cleaner service, after being ‘badgered by sales calls’ claiming to be from Dyson, either over the phone or on the doorstep.
Dyson says in many cases customers are being charged more than originally quoted for the service, which Dyson claims is often carried out to a poor standard or with non-genuine parts, and then offered other products to buy.
Dyson told Which? it believes households are being contacted at random, in the hope they have a Dyson appliance, before being told their vacuum cleaner is due a service.
Cases have been reported across the UK and Ireland, with particular hotspots in Belfast, Reading, Newcastle, Guildford and Leicester.
Around 25 bogus companies have already been identified, and Dyson is asking customers to report unsolicited calls to trading standards. It’s not yet known if or how these companies are connected.
According to Dyson, a genuine Dyson engineer won’t come to your home unless you’ve called them, never makes cold calls and never passes information to third parties.
It does seem somewhat strange however that there are supposedly 25 companies all operating the same scam and that we’ve not heard about it before a press release from Dyson.
Of course there are many genuine repairers across the UK that will repair your Dyson, often for less than Dyson will, but they will not solicit for work in this way ever if they are a genuine repairer. They, like Dyson, would not contact you through cold calling, you would have to call them for service.