Protect yourself against rogue traders

Investing significantly in upgrading your chilling equipment is always worthwhile, but you must protect yourself while you buy.

The posing threat is that a large number of commercial refrigeration sellers are just onward traders who are unable to provide backup service or honour warranties. Following these four steps might help ensure you are buying new equipment from reputable traders.

1. Check companies out on the Companies House website

   If a business is less than five years old but looks like a large company it’s worth checking if they are a single-person trader.

2. Look at the logo

   Single-person traders tend only to buy other company’s products, so you won’t see photos of these with their company logo on the packaging. But beware of using this as your only check – Photoshop can be used to great effect.

3. Make sure they are as big as they say they are

   Look out for tell-tale signs of a single-person business trying to appear to be a larger company. The largest manufacturers outsource distribution, so you are unlikely to see pictures of branded vans on their websites.

4. Give them a call

   Call the company a couple of times. If only one person ever answers the phone, this could be a bedroom trader working alone.