The FTC has initiated investigations of home energy fraud schemes.  Some falsely promise savings and others make unsolicited calls on the Do Not Call List.

A press release said,  “It should be clear by now: if you make illegal robocalls to people on the Do Not Call list, you’re headed for trouble. Trouble — in the form of a Federal lawsuit — just found an operation that the FTC says bombarded people with more than 1.3 million robocalls pitching energy savings. .

According to the lawsuit,  companies called people whose numbers are on the Do Not Call Registry, and kept calling after people asked them to stop. Although the companies’ messages said things like “This is an urgent call about your energy bill,” people who pushed a number to get more information didn’t get energy help. They were transferred to  telemarketers, who collected their names and sold them to solar installation companies as leads.

If you get a recorded sales message and you haven’t given the company your written permission to call, the call is illegal. If you get a call like that, don’t press a button to be taken off the call list or to talk to a live person. That just leads to more calls. Instead, hang up and file a complaint at donotcall.gov. If you get unwanted calls from many different numbers, you could look into a call blocking solution. There are online call blocking services, call blocking boxes, and smartphone apps that block unwanted calls. Do an online search to look for reviews from experts and other users, and find out whether there’s a charge for the service.