Home security, Alarm company | Alarm company went bankrupt: Roar (53) feels cheated and wants the debt canceled

(Haugesund newspaper) – I could take my family to the US for that money.

Roar Kleven is in despair. What was originally supposed to give him and his family the security of their own home has now caused him a frightening insecurity.

In mid-October, Haugesund’s Avis wrote about the elderly couple John Sigve and Reidun Olaug Moe, who had paid more than NOK 48,000 ​​for an alarm system that never worked.

Kleven took that article with him.

– It was easy to identify with him, he says.

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– Imagine there was no danger

We go back to February this year.

– A salesman and a colleague came to the door, from the Homewatch company. I had recently changed alarm companies, and at first I wasn’t in the mood for anything new. But he was a very energetic and motivated person. He pulled out a calculator and showed me the benefits of switching to them. I will save tens of thousands of kroner. Looking back, I don’t know why I was biting, Kleven said thoughtfully.

Strictly speaking, there was nothing to “bite on”, because Homewatch AS was a real Norwegian company. But it wasn’t long before Kleven came to regret it.

– They said they had three months of open purchase, so I thought there was no risk of entering the agreement, he says.

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– Difficult and unclear

Some time after signing, Hermod Fossheim, general manager of Homewatch AS, came home to Kleven to install the alarm system.

– He threw a document on the kitchen counter, which later turned out to be a credit agreement with Resurs Bank for NOK 64,642 that I signed. It was false and unclear, and Homewatch said they should take the bill to cancel the agreement with my company at the time, but the bills were coming from there too, says Kleven.

He believes that since then he has paid almost NOK 8,000 in interest costs alone, and that the debt with Resurs Bank has decreased so little.

– This is despite the fact that it was sold without interest and without cost. The money is one thing, that’s bad enough in itself. Another thing is that those who came to our door encouraged trust, and I think a little about those values ​​that we have here in Norway, as a society of trust. Homewatch was sophisticated, but we have found the bluff, says Kleven.

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Repayment may be required

Since Homewatch AS was declared bankrupt in October, Kleven understands that there is not much to be gained from them, but he has sent an appeal to the housing board.

Based on this, he and several other members of the Facebook group on the subject are now asking Resurs Bank to cancel the debt, because they are not receiving the services they are paying for. for more.

The Consumer Council also believes that they may be entitled to this.

– As the user says, he no longer has a functional alert system now that the company is bankrupt. In such cases, you have the right to cancel the purchase, because what you have paid for is defective, and it is unlikely that the defect will be corrected by the company, says a consumer law Thomas Iversen to Haugesund’s Avis.

He believes that Kleven has done the right thing in contacting housing councils.

– He can also request repayment from the credit provider (in this case Resurs Bank, journ.anm.) because the credit agreement is mediated by the seller or by agreement between the sales and the credit provider. The amount he asks for back depends on the size of the credit when the agreement was made. To be able to complain to the credit provider, it is only a requirement that you have complained to the seller first. There is no requirement that the seller has responded, and the customer does not need any proof to prove the claim against the bank, continues Iversen.

– It may be illegal

Homewatch is also not an unknown company to the Consumer Council.

– We are aware that in some cases this company has marketed the warning packages and the credit agreement through door-to-door sales. It is forbidden to market credit contracts in this way, which is clearly defined in the financial regulations. Therefore, the consumer can also claim that the credit agreement is not binding, because it was made as a result of illegal marketing, says Iversen.

Communications manager at Resurs Bank, Måns Renntun, writes the following in an email to Haugesund’s Avis.

– As a credit provider, it is our responsibility to ensure that our partners follow the guidelines that apply to extending credit, and we always communicate this. We have specified what applies to door sales. In the cases where we have continued with partners, the credit agreement was signed at a later time than the purchase agreement itself, which indicates that it was not done through door-to-door sales. If it turns out that our guidelines have not been followed, we will correct this. This applies to all questions regarding this broken partner, and we want to help those affected in the best way possible.

– There is no other payment method

Kleven does not recognize himself in this.

– It was the butcher, who was also the general manager, who threw the papers about this on my counter. They say there is no question about door-to-door sales, but I would say that having a serving machine standing in my kitchen as an extension of door-to-door sales comes under this. The original agreement also stated that it “accepts credit approval from our financial partner”. They never presented another payment method, he says.

Renntun believes that the equipment that Kleven bought on credit through Homewatch is not useless even if the company is bankrupt.

– Our assessment is that the equipment can be used together with other alarm services on the market. If this is not true, we will try to find a solution for those customers, he writes.

Haugesunds Avis has tried to call the general manager of Homewatch AS, Hermod Fossheim, but receives a reply that the number is not in use.

When we call the number listed for co-owner Henok Daniel, a woman answers who can say that this phone also belongs to Fossheim, but that she has nothing to do with him, and that she found his phone in the ditch on Friday.