2026 solar & battery scams: know the red flags, walk away from the pressure.
The federal battery rebate boom brought a wave of high-pressure and outright scam selling — AI-avatar rebate ads, "our crew's already in your street", fake "free" batteries. This is the honest field guide: name the tactics, know your 10-business-day cooling-off right, and check whether your battery is under recall — with zero upsell.
Reviewed by the Mission Green Energy Team · Updated July 2026
The one rule that
beats almost every scam.
If a deal only works if you sign right now, it isn't a deal — it's a trap. Genuine offers survive a night's sleep and a second quote. Pressure is the red flag that sits underneath all the others.
The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program put battery rebates in front of millions of households in 2026 — and predictably, that money attracted a wave of high-pressure and scam selling on the back of it. The ACCC is explicit that solar and battery suppliers "must not harass or coerce consumers" and must not mislead you about rebate eligibility, the savings you'll make, or the size of system you need.
We'll name the specific tactics below. But if you remember only one thing, make it this: a legitimate installer is happy for you to sleep on it and get a second quote; a scammer needs you to do neither. Every trick in this guide — the closing-today discount, the crew "already in your area", the pay-to-unlock rebate, the free battery — exists to short-circuit that pause. Slow the sale down and most of them fall apart on their own.
The high-pressure playbook
— and how to break it.
The same handful of moves show up again and again. Once you can name them, they lose most of their power. Here's what to listen for.
- "Sign today or you lose the rebate." Government rebate schemes don't close at 5pm because you hesitated. Scamwatch specifically warns of scammers who "pressure you into making a hurried decision claiming that false grants or rebate schemes are due to close soon." Rebate rules do change over time — but you confirm that at the source, not from the person selling to you.
- "Our crew's already in your area." The manufactured-proximity line — a discount because a van is supposedly down the road — is a classic door-to-door close designed to make walking away feel wasteful. It isn't. A real business will still be there next week.
- Pay upfront to "unlock" your rebate. Legitimate rebate value is applied as a discount through an accredited retailer or claim — never unlocked by paying a caller. Scamwatch is blunt: Australian government departments "will never phone or email you asking you to pay upfront amounts in order to claim a rebate."
- AI-avatar and fake-celebrity ads. Slick social-media video pitching a rebate or "energy investment", fronted by an AI-generated avatar or a deepfaked celebrity or news anchor. Don't trust a face on a screen: 2026 CommBank research found Australians could correctly tell real from AI-generated images only about 42% of the time — below a coin flip.
- Coercion of vulnerable households. The ACCC treats taking "unfair advantage of any vulnerability or disability affecting a consumer" as unlawful unconscionable conduct. If a pitch leans on an elderly or unwell person's confusion, that's not sharp selling — it's against the law.
None of these are subtle once you're looking for them. The break, in every case, is the same: "I don't sign anything on the spot. Send it to me in writing and I'll get a second quote." A genuine seller says fine. A scammer suddenly loses interest — which tells you everything.
Three tricks hidden
inside the quote itself.
Not every dodgy deal arrives as a hard sell. Some are perfectly polite — the con is in the numbers. These are the three we see most often.
Oversized battery, undersized inverter
A big-sounding kilowatt-hour figure paired with an inverter or system too small to use it well — the headline looks generous while real-world performance falls short. A bigger number is easier to upsell than to justify.
The free or nearly-free battery
There's no such thing as a free battery — the cost is recovered somewhere. Usually via a long lock-in contract with exit fees, cheaper non-approved gear, or fees hidden off the headline price. Ask where the money comes from.
Hidden fees & termination traps
The ACCC warns suppliers must not conceal "extra charges that may impact the total price" or "costs or fees associated with termination." Switchboard work, meter changes and exit fees belong in the quote, not a surprise later.
Signed under pressure?
You may have 10 business days to walk.
This is the single most useful thing to know if a salesperson has already been in your kitchen: the Australian Consumer Law gives you a cooling-off right on unsolicited sales — and it's free to use.
Under the ACL, if you signed an unsolicited consumer agreement — one that came from a door-to-door salesperson, a telemarketer, or someone who approached you in a public place — you have a 10-business-day cooling-off period to cancel for any reason, without penalty. (Source: ACCC — telemarketing and door-to-door sales.)
The details that matter:
- The clock starts the first business day after you sign or receive the agreement.
- The agreement must tell you about this right and include a cancellation form. The required wording is: "You have a right to cancel this agreement within 10 business days from and including the day after you signed or received this agreement."
- During cooling-off, the seller can't take payment for services, and can't supply services at all (limited exceptions like electricity, gas or emergency repairs). They also can't supply goods worth more than $500 during this window.
- If you cancel, you get your money back. The seller must immediately return any money you paid — even if you've used the product.
Two honest caveats. First, this automatic right attaches to unsolicited sales — a quote you actively sought out may not carry it, so read the contract's cooling-off clause either way. Second, rules and thresholds can change, so confirm the current position with the ACCC or your state's consumer-affairs office. If you want out, put your cancellation in writing and keep a copy.
How to check whether
your battery is under recall.
Separate from scams, some batteries already installed in Australian homes are under active safety recall. Here's how to check properly — using official lists, not a salesperson trying to sell you a replacement.
If someone knocks claiming your battery is "recalled" and they can replace it today, that's the pressure playbook again — verify it yourself first. There are two authoritative places to check, both free:
- The Clean Energy Council product-recalls page, which lists battery and inverter recalls issued by the ACCC.
- The national Product Safety Australia recall database (productsafety.gov.au), where you can search all consumer product recalls by brand.
As at 2026, the live recalls relevant to home batteries include:
- Certain LG Energy Solution home storage batteries. The affected cells can overheat and catch fire. Crucially, they were sold under LG's own RESU name and rebadged inside other brands — the ACCC lists systems including SolaX Power Station, SolaX X-Cabinet, Opal Storage, Redback SH5000, Red Earth Sunrise, Red Earth Drop Bear, Eguana Evolve and VARTA Pulse Neo. You can check your unit on LG Energy Solution's official serial-number recall checker. The ACCC's safety advice for an affected battery is to switch it off and keep it off, then contact LG Energy Solution for a free replacement or refund. (A variation to the ACCC undertaking accepted 24 November 2025 gives affected consumers expedited access to replacement or refund.)
- A subset of Tesla Powerwall 2 units. Tesla identified certain third-party lithium-ion cells in a subset of Powerwall 2 systems that may fail and overheat; the Clean Energy Council recall listing was updated 13 April 2026. Check the source for the affected supply dates and Tesla's remedy.
Recall lists are living documents — brands get added, dates get extended. Don't rely on this page as the final word: check the two official links above, and if your battery is affected, deal with the manufacturer's official process rather than a stranger at the door.
What a trustworthy seller
looks like instead.
Red flags are easier to spot when you know the shape of the real thing. A legitimate installer isn't hard to recognise — they behave in ways a scammer can't afford to.
They're fine with you waiting
No closing-today discount, no crew-in-the-area urgency. A genuine quote is still valid after you sleep on it and get a second opinion — and they'll say so without flinching.
Everything is in writing
One itemised total installed price, every product named and on the Clean Energy Council approved list, all fees and any exit terms visible. Nothing "explained on the phone later".
Accredited & checkable
A real business address, an ABN, SAA-accredited installers, and reviews you can verify independently. You can check them out before a cent changes hands — and they expect you to.
The whole guide,
in one paragraph.
Here's the call we'd give a friend who just got a knock at the door or a too-good-to-be-true ad in their feed.
Never sign on the spot, never pay to "claim" a rebate, and never trust a face in an ad you didn't go looking for. If a deal only works today, let it expire — a real one won't. Confirm every rebate claim yourself at energy.gov.au or the Clean Energy Regulator; make any quote show its working and put its total price in writing; and if you've already signed something under pressure, check whether your 10-business-day cooling-off right lets you walk. If you own a battery, take two minutes to check the official recall lists rather than waiting for a stranger to tell you. This is honest walk-away territory — sometimes the best move is no purchase at all, and a seller worth trusting will tell you that too. If you're not sure where to start, we're happy to be a sanity-check, with no obligation to buy anything from us.
Solar & battery scams:
your questions, answered.
Pressure and urgency are the core signals. Watch for a deal that must be signed today or the rebate supposedly disappears, a knock at the door or a call claiming a crew is already in your area, a government rebate quoted as a limited-time offer that will close soon, a request for an upfront payment to unlock a grant, and a battery advertised as free or nearly free. The ACCC states solar and battery suppliers must not harass or coerce consumers or use high-pressure selling, and must not mislead you about rebate eligibility, savings, or the size of system you need. A genuine deal survives a night's sleep and a second quote; a scam relies on you not taking either. Rebate and eligibility rules can change, so confirm any rebate claim yourself at energy.gov.au or the Clean Energy Regulator rather than trusting a salesperson's version.
Often yes. Under the Australian Consumer Law, if you signed an unsolicited consumer agreement — one that came from a door-to-door salesperson, a telemarketer, or someone who approached you in a public place — you have a 10-business-day cooling-off period to cancel for any reason, without penalty. The clock starts the first business day after you sign or receive the agreement, and the agreement must include a notice of this right and a cancellation form. During cooling-off the seller cannot take payment or supply services, and if you cancel they must return any money you paid. This applies to unsolicited sales specifically; a quote you actively sought out may not carry the same automatic right. Check the current rules at the ACCC or your state consumer-affairs office, and put your cancellation in writing.
Not automatically — but treat it with real caution. There is no such thing as a genuinely free battery; the cost is recovered somewhere, and the honest question is where. Sometimes a discount is funded by locking you into a long virtual-power-plant or electricity-plan contract with exit fees, sometimes by fitting cheaper or non-approved equipment, and sometimes the headline price hides fees for the inverter, switchboard work, or installation. Ask what the total installed price is in writing, what you are committing to in return, whether every product is on the Clean Energy Council approved list, and what it costs to leave any linked contract early. If the answer to where the money comes from is vague, that vagueness is the answer.
Check the official recall lists, not a salesperson. The Clean Energy Council publishes a product-recalls page covering batteries and inverters, and the national database at Product Safety Australia (productsafety.gov.au) lets you search all consumer product recalls. As at 2026 the live recalls include certain LG Energy Solution home storage batteries — sold under LG's own RESU name and rebadged in systems such as SolaX, Opal Storage, Redback, Red Earth, Eguana and VARTA — and a subset of Tesla Powerwall 2 units. For the LG recall you can check your battery's serial number on LG Energy Solution's official recall checker; the ACCC's safety advice is to switch an affected battery off and contact the manufacturer for a free remedy. Recall lists change, so check the source directly rather than relying on this page.
It is a quote that pairs a large-sounding battery capacity with an inverter or system too small to use it well, so the headline kilowatt-hour number looks generous while the real-world performance falls short. A related move is selling far more storage than a household's usage actually needs, because a bigger number is easier to upsell than to justify. The honest defence is to ask the quote to show its working: your typical daily and evening usage, why the recommended battery and inverter sizes suit that usage, and what the system can actually deliver at once. If a salesperson pushes a size without connecting it to your bills, that is a sizing sold for their margin, not your home. Our guide to reading a solar quote walks through exactly what a fair, itemised quote should contain.
Treat it as a scam. Scamwatch warns that Australian government departments will never phone or email asking you to pay an upfront amount to claim a rebate, and legitimate rebate value is applied as a discount through an accredited retailer or claim process — not unlocked by paying a caller. The safe move is to hang up and contact the relevant body directly using a number you find yourself. Be equally wary of slick video ads on social media using AI-generated avatars or fake celebrity or news-anchor endorsements to push a rebate or investment; research from CommBank in 2026 found Australians could correctly tell real from AI-generated images only about 42 per cent of the time, so do not trust a face on a screen. Verify any rebate claim at energy.gov.au or the Clean Energy Regulator before acting.
Where these figures come from.
Rules, recalls and figures on this page are drawn from official primary sources and were current as at 2026. Scams evolve and recall lists change — confirm at the source before relying on a figure.
- ACCC — Solar panel systems and home batteries (misleading conduct, high-pressure selling, unsolicited-sales rules)
- ACCC — Telemarketing and door-to-door sales (10-business-day cooling-off period, $500 supply limit)
- Scamwatch — Continue to beware of scam solar offers (fake rebates, upfront-payment warning)
- Clean Energy Council — Product recalls (battery & inverter recall list, incl. Tesla Powerwall 2, updated 13 April 2026)
- Product Safety Australia / ACCC — LG ESS home battery recall (affected rebadged brands & safety action)
- LG Energy Solution Australia — Official recall serial-number checker
- ACCC — LG undertaking variation (expedited replacement/refund, accepted 24 November 2025)
- CommBank (2026) — Australians' ability to spot AI-generated images (~42% accuracy)
- energy.gov.au — Cheaper Home Batteries Program (verify current rebate eligibility)