Author Topic: Roof-Top Solar Panels — the Latest Homeowner Fraud  (Read 1111 times)

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Offline DeeDee

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Roof-Top Solar Panels — the Latest Homeowner Fraud
« on: August 24, 2015, 10:13:35 PM »
The latest homeowner scam. Don't get sucked in:

http://www.newsmax.com/BradleyBlakeman/Roof-Solar-Panels-Fraud/2014/03/14/id/559661/

Here is how the scam works:
 
Quote
Homeowners and small businesses are approached by non-utility third-party contractor/installers promising significant energy savings and offering complete installation of a roof-top solar system with the enticement of a 20-year lease with small or no upfront costs for installation or operation.
 
These savings estimates are based on inflated assumptions about future utility rates that are unsupported by any real or reliable analysis. The consumers do not own the system that is affixed to their homes and are merely purchasing the “electricity” that is generated from an entity other than their public utility.
 
Homeowners are not told that, in entering into the solar lease, the solar company will secure the contractual obligations of the customer by placing a lien or other encumbrance on the homeowner’s property. As a result, the contractor/installer or holder in due course of the lien has a security on the entire real property not just on the solar installation.
 
Like any scam to be effective, the come on must be too good to be true – energy savings, no upfront costs, teaser rates in the early years, etc. Left for the fine print is the fact that the customer’s initially low lease payments escalates year after year, and that he or she may end up paying more for electricity just a few years out if their electric utility doesn’t raise rates as assumed or if other charges are made to electric policy that upset the dubious economics of the lease.
 
And, like any scam, the perpetrators must act quick with high pressure sales tactics employed to sign up as many victims as possible before the flaws in the leasing model are made public and then sell the leases which are secured by liens to others at a deep discount, offering no remedy to the solar customer if the profiteer goes out of business or simply walk away.
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