City of Toronto is warning residents to be cautious about private companies offering door-to-door free water testing

An Aug. 29, 2014 CBC article is entitled: “Lifetime Water Systems sales pitch after free test frustrates residents: The test is free, but what residents aren’t told is that it is followed by a water filter sales pitch.”

The article notes:

• The city has placed a warning notice on its website, including a fact sheet about door-to-door water testing.

The opening paragraphs at the link in the previous sentence read:

• Toronto Water does not conduct door-to-door sales of any kind and does not sell, market or endorse any products.

• No one coming door-to-door is authorized to make a health-based test on your water; in fact, residents should be aware that, in Ontario, only fully accredited laboratories are licensed to perform health-based tests on drinking water and results take approximately 24 to 48 hours to process.

• Learn more about this issue from the Ministry of the Environment.

[End of excerpt]

Ministry of the Environment

The opening paragraphs from the Ministry of Environment link in the previous sentence read:

• If a test of your tap water produces a brown substance is it safe to drink?  Truth is, such tests are absolutely meaningless in terms of assessing water safety. Unfortunately, some door-to-door salespersons have been causing unnecessary concern as a way of luring Ontarians, especially seniors, into buying costly reverse osmosis treatment units.

• How do the tests work? First, an electric current is used to activate naturally occurring minerals and make the water turn brown. Then, the treatment removes the minerals from the tap water, making the brown colour disappear. The test does not and cannot identify contamination that could cause illness.

• “In Ontario, only fully accredited laboratories licensed to perform drinking water testing – not home-based testers – are authorized to perform health-based tests on drinking water,” said John Stager, Ontario’s Chief Drinking Water Inspector. “Our stringent standards for these labs make the province’s municipal tap water among the best protected in the world. Ontarians can have confidence that their tap water is safe to drink.”

[End of excerpt]

Door to door sales

A person has reason to proceed with care and caution – I generally close the door within two seconds, especially when I see somebody flashing a badge – when opening one’s door to door-to-door sales pitches, as the following post (one of many that I’ve posted in recent years) indicates:

This is a scam to get in your house to hard sell you on a new system

Among the most visited pages, along with posts about Erving Goffman – as evidenced by Google Analytics – at the Preserved Stories website is an October 2012 blog post about scams and scamming:

Beware of energy scammers going door to door

Such scams frequently target the frail and vulnerable. We must do what we can to help our fellow residents from being victimized.