How to stop solar phone calls. Free, permanent, and about five minutes.

Register your number on the Do Not Call Register at donotcall.gov.au or by phone on 1300 792 958. It is free, you only need to do it once, and registration now lasts indefinitely rather than expiring after three years. Once listed, it is illegal for telemarketers to call you. Allow about 30 days for calls to drop, because telemarketers are required to check their lists against the register at least every 30 days, so a list pulled before you registered may legitimately still be in use for a few weeks. If calls continue beyond that, note the date, time, calling number and company name and complain to ACMA through the same site. Also check whether you have unintentionally consented — entering a competition, requesting a quote through a comparison site or downloading a free report can constitute consent, and consent overrides the register.

Four possible reasons. You may still be inside the 30-day window in which telemarketers are required to refresh their lists against the register, so a list assembled before you registered can legitimately still be in use. The caller may be exempt: government bodies, registered political parties, MPs and candidates, registered charities, educational institutions, and market or social researchers where the call has no commercial purpose are all outside the register's prohibitions, though the industry standards on calling hours and identification still apply to them. You may have consented without realising — competitions, quote-comparison sites and free-report downloads frequently include consent to contact, and lead-generation businesses in the solar sector sell those details to multiple retailers, which is why one enquiry produces many calls. Or the caller is simply breaking the law, often operating offshore with a spoofed number, in which case no register will stop them and the correct response is not to engage at all.

Under the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017, telemarketing calls are permitted on weekdays between 9am and 8pm and on Saturdays between 9am and 5pm. No telemarketing calls are permitted on Sundays or public holidays. These rules apply even to organisations that are exempt from the Do Not Call Register itself, such as charities and research callers. The standard also requires callers to identify themselves and the organisation they are calling on behalf of, to provide contact details on request, and to end the call when asked. A call outside those hours is a breach you can report to ACMA, and it is worth noting the date, time and calling number when it happens. Beyond the hours, if you tell a caller to remove you from their list and not contact you again, that is a lawful instruction they must comply with rather than something to be negotiated.

Almost certainly yes. An agreement reached through an unsolicited approach — a cold call or a door-knock — is an unsolicited consumer agreement under the Australian Consumer Law, and it carries a 10 business day cooling-off period during which you can cancel at no cost. For agreements above $500, the supplier must not supply the goods or services, and must not accept or require payment, during that period. That has an important consequence for anything said on the call: if a salesperson told you the price was only valid today, they were applying pressure to a decision the law already gave you ten business days to reconsider. To cancel, notify the supplier in writing and keep a copy. If the supplier resists, or has already taken payment they were not entitled to take, escalate to your state or territory fair trading or consumer affairs body and to the ACCC.

Treat it as a scam until you have verified it independently. These are common openers, along with claims that your panels need an urgent compliance inspection or that the caller represents your retailer or a government body. The goal is usually either a paid inspection you do not need or your personal and account details. Do not confirm anything, do not answer questions, and hang up — engaging at all marks your number as live. Never give a cold caller your NMI or meter number, electricity account number, date of birth, Medicare or licence number, bank or card details, or remote access to a device; no legitimate retailer, distributor or government body needs those from an inbound call. If the claim might be genuine, verify it yourself: call your retailer on the number printed on your bill rather than one the caller supplies, and check recalls directly at productsafety.gov.au. No legitimate Australian rebate is ever claimed by giving card details to someone who rang you.

It depends on the problem, and sending it to the wrong body wastes weeks. For unwanted telemarketing to a registered number, or calls outside permitted hours, complain to ACMA through donotcall.gov.au — and include the date, time, the number that called and the company name if you obtained one, because a complaint with those details is actionable while a general report is not. For misleading claims, pressure selling, or a contract you were pushed into, the path is the ACCC and your state or territory fair trading or consumer affairs body, which is the Australian Consumer Law route and the one that can actually undo an agreement. For outright scam calls, report to Scamwatch. If you have already signed something following a cold call, remember the 10 business day cooling-off period on unsolicited consumer agreements applies first — cancelling within it costs you nothing.