Some typical examples of situations that may lead to an unsolicited agreement being made are:
- Door-knocking households and offering to sell products or services or inviting consumers to switch to a different service provider.
- Telephoning consumers and offering to sell products or services.
- Approaching consumers in the common area of a shopping centre and offering to sell products or services.
- Leaving a missed call message on an answering machine for the consumer to respond.
Examples
The following situations may also be considered unsolicited approaches:
You fill out an entry form to a competition sponsored by a supplier, as one of the conditions of entry you agree to be contacted by the supplier about new product information. In this case, any subsequent contact with you from a supplier who is seeking to sell you goods or services would still be considered unsolicited.
You ask a trader to provide a quote (such as measuring for blinds). Again, you have not invited the trader to enter into negotiations to sell you something, so if the trader does attempt to negotiate with you at the time of providing a quote, or later contacts you to negotiate a deal, then a resulting agreement would be considered an unsolicited consumer agreement. But, if the trader leaves a quote with you for deliberation and you then approach the trader to accept the quote or negotiate different terms, then this would not be considered an unsolicited consumer agreement.