ORLANDO, Florida – More and more homeowners in Florida are turning to solar power. It makes sense since we live in the sunshine state, but step 9 some solar companies aren’t always living up to their end of the bargain.
Virginia Duggan, in her 80s, liked the idea of leaving the world a better place and wanted to save money. So, when someone from Vision Solar knocked on her door in 2021, she was interested.
Duggan explains, “And then, ‘Do you want to save money on your electricity?’ And I said, ‘Well, of course, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.’
She signed up for solar panels on her main home in Daytona Beach and her second home a few blocks away.
“What really sold me was, ‘And the government will give you $3,000 to convert to solar,'” she says.
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Duggan soon found out that it wasn’t as good as she expected. She was not eligible for the $3000 government incentive.
The panels are attached to her original house and are working. Her electricity bills are low, but she says she’s breaking even with what she pays for Act 9 on the panel.
Duggan wishes she could say the same about her second home. When Action 9 consumer investigator Jeff Dale caught up with her, she was paying on those panels. But they never passed inspection, never met, and even though they soaked up the sun, they never produced any energy.
She says Vision Solar often promises to fix them.
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“Two months later, maybe three, and they kept saying they were going to come back and do that,” Duggan said.
Now more than two years have passed with the panels out of use. So, Action 9 stopped by the Orlando Vision Solar office to find out.
The office guy asked the staff to go outside and had to contact someone out of state to get an answer. He pretended that this was an unusual occurrence.
“We do thousands of installations, so one installation every now and then is handled by Jersey’s legal department,” he said.
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But Vision Solar has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau and hundreds of complaints. The Florida Attorney General’s Office has about 170 complaints against Vision Solar and has launched an investigation.
Connecticut’s attorney general has accused Vision Solar of unfair and deceptive sales tactics, and Hunter says the practice is the worst they’ve ever seen.
A few months ago, the Federal Trade Commission took legal action against Vision Solar and its telemarketing partner for making false and misleading statements to consumers about energy savings and incentives.
Virginia Duggan said, “That’s a good waste of my money. I still pay on those. Very disappointing.
In response to Action 9, Vision Solar Chief Marketing Officer Virginia Duggan said they are looking into the matter and have started a task force to expedite the shutdown even though it may cancel projects.
Step 9 After it starts asking questions. Vision helps solve Duggan’s problems at the company’s expense. After she refused, Vision agreed to remove her panels from the second home and cancel her debt.
A part of the statement, Vision’s marketing officer wrote: “We are working round the clock on every project regarding these complaints. I personally take this matter seriously with the company.
Here is the full statement sent by Vision Solar in response to our inquiry about the number of complaints:
We are working round the clock on every project due to these complaints. I personally take this matter seriously with the company. I created an internal task force in the name of Customer Success that spends every day to ensure that any client with a project on hold is resolved quickly – even if that means canceling a project. My only goal is to please our customers and meet their needs to the best of our ability. That said, most of these complaints have been resolved or are in the process of being resolved.