Consumer Alert
1. Is your dealer running a legitimate business ? In other words does he possess a valid business license, resale permit, liability insurance, state license (If he claims to be a contractor ?). Is he operating under a DBA, a partnership or is his company a Corporation ? Is he an authorized dealer for the products he's selling ? For example what recourse do you have as a customer if the item that you just purchased turns out to be used, refurbished or worse yet, stolen ? In many cases unless you've purchased your system from an authorized dealer, the support that you may desperately need may be limited at best!
Smart Tip ! Don't become your dealer's personal banker ! A dealer should never process your credit card unless he has the product in stock or has sent a purchase order to a distributor that has stock. If a dealer advises you that the item that your interested in is backordered, it's ok to take your credit card information down in anticipation of receiving inventory, but it's not ok to process your credit card if the dealer is out of stock.
If you have placed an order with a dealer and he has charged your credit card knowing that the product that you have ordered is out of stock. Be very careful ! A dealer who is financially solvent would have no need to do this. A dealer who is on the brink of bankruptcy or "borrowing from Peter to pay Paul" to stay in business, probably would.
If you've determined that your dealer has charged your credit card and does not have the product available, immediately demand a refund ! If the dealer refuses to give you an immediate refund, contact your credit card company and request to file a charge back. If your dealer has processed your credit card but your shipment is overdue, ask your dealer for your shipment's tracking number. If your dealer tells you that the shipment was drop shipped from another source such as a distributor or manufacturer, ask him for the other source's phone number. Don't fall victim to this unethical and illegal practice !
Would you give your credit card number to a complete stranger that you've just met on the street ? Then why would you submit your credit card number to a web site without receiving third party verification of the company's legitimacy ? Nowadays it takes only minutes to set up an impressive looking web site and call yourself a dealer of just about anything and just as easily take the web site down and disappear !
Smart Tip ! Only shop from web sites that display a secure site seal that you can click on which has been provided by a well known third party. This insures that the business and website are legitimate. Be sure to click on the seal to confirm its authenticity.
Smart Tip ! A quick word about dealers that do installations. Always insist on seeing a copy of an installing dealer's contractor's license. After receiving the copy, confirm the legitimacy of the license by contacting your state's contractor licensing board, which can easily be located on the Internet by typing your state's name followed by the words contractors licensing board into any major search engine. Here's a link to the State of California's contractor's licensing board: http://www2.cslb.ca.gov/CSLB_LIBRARY/Name+Request.asp
If the dealer claims to be a contractor, the name of the dealer's business should be listed with the state. If the dealer is not a contractor but is using someone else's contractor's license, get in touch with that contractor to make sure that his license is associated with the dealer.
Never ever allow anyone to perform work on your home without first seeing evidence that he is an employee or subcontractor of the contractor that you're dealing with and is covered under the contractor's or subcontractor's insurance. If a worker is not covered by the contractor's insurance or the contractor has no insurance and the worker is injured on your property, lookout because you could wind up with a lawsuit on your hands and could even lose your home. Always demand a copy of the list of the contractor's employees and insurance before letting anyone on to your property, especially on the roof of your home.
2. Does your dealer operate out of a commercial facility ? In other words does he work from at least an office with a warehouse area. Or does he operate from a spare bedroom, automobile or worse ? If you want to be sure that your dealer is being honest with you about his location, here's a little trick, before you establish a relationship with any dealer, even though you don't live nearby, tell the dealer that you would like directions to his facility so that you can come by and take a look at some product. In many cases you'll hear some pretty good excuses as to why he can't see you just then.
Another way to confirm a dealer's true location is to contact the City Hall where his address is located, and ask them whether or not the address is in a commercial or residential district. To obtain the phone number for the appropriate City Hall, simply visit a search engine such as http://www.yahoo.com and type in the name of the city the business is located in, followed by the words city hall for example "victorville city hall"
A clue to help you determine how long a business has been on the Internet is to visit http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois On that page you'll find a window where you can enter a company's domain name, for example: deceptivesite.com Click go, and you'll be provided with the domain owner's name and the date that the domain name was registered, or in other words the earliest date that the web site could have been available on the Internet.
We were recently alerted to a website on the Internet that claims that it had been doing business for almost two decades. Now there are solar companies that have been around for that long, but being such a small industry, those companies are well known established businesses.
This website allegedly showed up out of nowhere ! Well after a little research, we were not surprised to find that the company had reportedly only been in business for about three months, and despite the web site's claim of having performed numerous solar installations for almost two decades, we found that the company allegedly had only a few month's worth of installation experience on a small handful of jobs and did not even posses a electrical contractors license in their name ! So again we cannot stress enough, Know who you are dealing with !
Smart Tip ! Beware of dealers that provide only PO boxes ! If you've contacted an unscrupulous dealer, a PO box can provide a quick exit for a dealer who doesn't want to be traced. Always get your dealer's physical address !
Smart Tip ! Remember, unless you are applying for credit with a dealer, some related activity or it has been requested by a government agency, never ever give any dealer your social security number !!! Believe it or not, there are dealers out there that will ask for it !
3. Does your dealer have any inventory ? And by that I
don't mean a couple of sample solar panels and maybe an inverter
or two, what I mean is has he made a financial commitment to the
industry that he serves or is he just a middle man ?
No dealer can be expected to have everything in stock but if your dealer has no inventory and is having everything drop shipped, who do you go to if there is a shipping problem such as damage to the product or lost product. Who has to file the claim with the shipping company, is it you, the dealer or the distributor ?
Dealing through second or even third party claims can be a nightmare, especially when your dealer has no replacement inventory to ship you. In the mean time the dealer has your money and you've got no product ! In our opinion, dealers with no inventory are not committed to the industry or the customer ! If a dealer tells you that he has inventory, try the tip listed above and tell the dealer that you would like to stop by and see some of his inventory. If he's been honest with you then you should hear no excuses.
4. Does your dealer offer free technical support ? That
is, before and after the sale. This is an especially important
question and it's two fold in that you may hear " sure we
offer tech support " but is he qualified to offer tech support
? What is his background and training ? The term "engineer"
is used loosely in this industry, if the person that your speaking
with identifies himself as a solar engineer, ask what university he received his engineering
degree at. If you ask simple technical
questions and you consistently hear " I'll have to get back
to you with an answer " or your questions are avoided with
what is sometimes referred to as "sales speak" or "used car
salesman's fast talk" (you know the type), then beware, your dealer probably doesn't
know what he's doing and could offer you advice that may damage
your system or worse !
Secondly, some dealers may offer free technical support to make the sale but what about afterwards when you have all those boxes open and you've got wires and connectors everywhere with a million and one questions that need answers ?
Smart Tip ! Is your dealer is offering you a rebate or cash referral for buying a system from him or for referring a customer. This is one of the oldest gimmicks in the book ! Sure you'll get a cash rebate, but where do you think the money will come from ? If you believe that the dealer is going to hand it over to you from his own pocket, I've got a bridge that I'd like to sell you ! There are two versions of this gimmick.
In the first version, the dealer may post his product prices but won't post his installation fee, hoping that you won't shop around. When it comes time for a full quote including labor, guess what ?, your $300.00, $600.00 or $1000.00 cash rebate is tacked on to your installation fee and presto, you just paid for your own cash back, or your friend or relative that you just referred just paid for your cash referral.
Now if you're referring a complete stranger and your conscience doesn't bother you, then I suppose it's a ok, but if you're referring a friend or relative, then you might as well have reached into their wallet and taken the money yourself.
The second version of this scheme is basically
the same except that the
dealer may or may not advertise the installation cost but does not advertise one
or more of the component
prices. The missing variable is where the amount of your cash back will be
padded. Our advice is to shop around until you've found the best price and
service on all of the components that you'll need for your system and then get at least
three separate quotes from licensed installers for the installation. Make sure
that the installer is not in any way associated with the component dealer to
avoid a kickback. The bottom line here is to stay away from dealers that use gimmicks
! Please note: Mail
in rebate offers that are coming directly from a manufacturer and State
sponsored rebate programs are fine, just make sure you read the fine print, keep an eye on the expiration date and make sure you submit the rebate form on
time.
5. Does your dealer operate his business on a full time basis
? When you need your dealer the most, will he be at his full
time job which has nothing to do with alternative energy ? Does he have staff
there at his facility to support you while he's away ? Or is he a one man show juggling
too many other responsibilities. Buying
from a part time dealer could leave you with a part time system.
6. What is your dealers return and privacy policy ? Does your dealer even post a return and privacy policy ? There are dealers on the Internet that sell items at such a low price that the only way that they can make any money off of their products is to sell your personal information ! And in this day and age of identity theft, that is the last thing that you want to have happen.
Smart Tip ! Always look for and read the company's privacy policy, which should be located in the sales policy page of the website. If you cannot find the privacy policy, ask the web site operator for its location on the web site. If the dealer does not have a privacy policy, then it is our opinion that you should steer clear and find another dealer that does. We cannot stress enough that you read the privacy policy, believe it or not there are companies out there that post privacy policies that actually protect only the dealer and offers very little if anything in the way of protection for the consumer !
Return policies will vary, but typically you will find a re-stocking fee of from 15 to 20 percent and a allowable return period of from 20 to 30 days from the date of original shipment. The re-stocking fee covers the fee charged by the credit card companies when initially charging the credit card and the fee for refunding the credit card which is not reimbursed to the vendor. It also covers the vendor's losses for having to re-sell the product as an open box or returned unit. In any event the fee should be reasonable and should only cover the dealers actual losses.
Smart Tip ! Re-stocking fees should typically be waived if the product is defective right out of the box and is being replaced, or the product is being exchanged for an upgrade or another equally valued item.
The allowable return period should be long enough to inspect the product and ship the product back to the vendor using a reasonable shipping method, so 20 to 30 days should be plenty of time.
Always read
the return policy which again should be located on the sales policy page of the
website. It is our opinion that charging more than 20% for a re-stocking fee
and offering less than 20 days to return a product is unreasonable. So we can't
stress enough, be sure to check the website's return policy !
It doesn't take much nowadays to set up a web site from a spare
bedroom and call yourself a renewable energy dealer. So called
"dealers" like that are cropping up every day on the
Internet.
Don't get us wrong we're not trying to make it difficult for the
little guy who's just getting started, we just feel that it's
important for an individual to have a certain level of competency
and commitment to the industry before they identify themselves
as a renewable energy dealer.
At the same time, we do not feel that this is the type of business that can be operated effectively on a part time basis. After all your not buying a stereo system or a computer, you're buying high energy devices that can be lethal if installed improperly. Take your time and protect yourself. By asking these six simple questions and following the tips that we have outlined, you can be confident that your experience with renewable energy will be pleasant, rewarding and safe.