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Solar electricity panels can earn you thousands of pounds under the government's Clean Energy
Cash Back Scheme. But only if your roof is right. So, when companies come around to sell
you solar panels, do they really know what they're talking about? Which has conducted
an undercover investigation into solar companies and found some pretty dodgy sales tactics
which could leave consumers losing out.
I'm here with Home editor, Liz Edwards. So Liz what we look at in our investigation?
Well, lots of companies including big names like British Gasoline have started selling
solar panels since the government introduced its Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme, which is
also called the Freedom Tariff. Under the Freedom Tariff, you can earn money from generating
electricity from green sources like solar panels.
We estimate that you could earn yourself 28,000 pounds profit over 25 years under this scheme.
Wow, certainly sounds good.That's right, I mean it's generated a lot of interest from
people. So, to protect consumers the government has said that if you want to own this money
you have to use a certified installer and certified products. So, what we did was invited
12 companies, all of them certified, round to our house, an undercover house.
And because the scheme bans pressure selling we were looking to see whether they were going
to try and give us the hard sell.
So what did we find? Do we see any examples of hard selling?
We absolutely did. Out of the 12 companies 2 quite clearly breached the code on terms
of their sales practices. So, Skyline put us under a fair bit of pressure to sign up
quickly. GreenSun gave us just 24 hours to sign a deal for 10,000 pounds.
So I understand we got a clip of this. Let's take a look at the salesman in action.
Can you put all this in writing for me?
I can put the term 94205 in writing to you.
Alright.
I can't put the discount if you want it.
Why is that then?
It's not available to just anybody.
Okay.
Not my rules. I don't put this stuff off for one reason. I mean, one has to get people's
business.
Yes, certainly.
Just wait, we'll start at 1378 quid.
Oh, okay. You reckon I got some until next day or so.
You happen to be quite an assembly workings one on one, and that's me gone. So, the truth
is that's a lot. You can ask if probably need to know by either the end of today or tomorrow
to lend it. And then we can get the paperwork sorted out because I'm going back north on
Sunday.
Okay.
Michelle thinks we're good anyway.
Yeah.
So, we reported that company to the Certification Scheme.
What about the Skyline salesman?
Well, the Skyline salesman offered us a discount if we were willing to him give meter readings
regularly. This is specifically banned under the code because it's a spurious reason for
giving a discount. He also put us under pressure because he said it was a first-come, first-serve
discount, which implies you'd better hurry up and take it or we're going to give it to
someone else.
So how does that sound to you?
Well yes, it sounds fine. Just want to know the price.
What I'm going to ask you a simple question, if we were to offer you a price that you're
happy with, is it something that you would go ahead with now?
If the price, well I can't read can I. Do I know what the price is I mean I don't?
Look, there's only two answers to that.
Yeah.
It's either going to be. When I give you the price, there's only two answers that are possible.
It's either going to be yes, let's go ahead. Or no thank you, here's the door, OK?
Yeah.
But what I tell you unless she's still here, if you're willing to go ahead with me now,
we could have to change for ten thousand two hundred and thirty eight.
Right
Which is quite a bit cheaper than eleven thousand one hundred fifty six.
But that 10,000 plus you want me to do meter readings as well you say.
Yeah, but the meter readings takes the 10 seconds or not, okay? So if you want to do
that, 10,238, increase everything. Increase VAT, fitting, the lot, nothing else to pay,
all right? Otherwise, I'll give you a price of 11,156 pounds.
So we've also reported that company to certification scheme. So apart from these dirty sales tactics,
did we uncover any other issues?
Yes, hidden costs. So if you're shelling out a lot of money for solar panels, you want
to know about all the costs that are involved. And with solar panels, you need to have an
inverter, which is the thing that changes the power that's generated by the solar panels
into usable current, AC current, in your home, and that needs to be replaced about every
10 years and it costs a thousand pounds.
Now 10 out of the 12 companies didn't even mention it.
So, we've got another clip of green thumb here. What's going on here?
Well, our researcher is prompting the salesman about ongoing costs, and she does that several
times, but he doesn't mention the really obvious one which is this.
Did you get any problems once you put the panels on, there's only up?
No, because there's no moving parts, so once the panels are up there that's it, just fit
it and forget it.
There's no maintenance or costs, nothing?
No maintenance, no annual service you know anything like that because there's effectively
nothing to actually.
Because you get like 1% as well. Do you get problems at all once you've gotten that sort
of thing then?
There shouldn't be any I mean.
She really did give him every opportunity there didn't she?
Yes.
And I understand we also had a problem with the people that the companies are sending
to do the quotes.
That's right, this is not about dodgy selling tactics but it is about sales people, because
as far as we're concerned, some of these companies are sending a sales person do to a surveyor's
job.
Now if you're getting a quote from a builder, they don't send the marketing manager to do
the quote, they send the builder because he or she has got the technical knowledge to
know how much something is going to cost, and whether it's going to work in your home.
But half the companies that we tested sent a salesperson which would be followed up by
a surveyors visit but you're being asked to make the decision on the salesperson's visit
and that could potentially be an inaccurate quote because the surveyor's quote is likely
to be more accurate.
And one of the companies that did that was Anglein.
Yes Anglein, our final clip. What's going on here?
Well here, the salesperson is explaining what he's not really qualified to quote.
I just want, does it cause any damage or anything to the roof?
No, everything is subject to survey, so it's got to be surveyed and if the roof has got
like a, you know, if it's not perfectly what I call flat, we can't build on it.
Right.
So we would structurally survey, I'm not a surveyor.
Right.
So get another man around, he goes up in the loft and say it's structurally sound and you
can take the weight of the panels. Otherwise it's a big national company, we wouldn't take
the job on anyway. So it looks like there's some serious issues with these companies who
are asking consumers to part with thousands of pounds.
That's right, all in all we've found some pretty shocking things, we don't see why people
should be put under pressure to buy something that cost a lot of money and we don't see
why a surveyor shouldn't be sent the first visit, why people should be asked to make
a decision on potentially quite an inaccurate quote from a sales person?
So we're talking to the government and we're talking to the industry and we're going to
be pushing for change.
Thanks Liz. For more information on this investigation or for buying advice if you're considering
getting solar panels, visit which.co.uk.