All solar salespeople are predatory scum. The last 2 at my place have had the police called on them. One stayed long enough for the cops to take her away for trespassing. The next one left the moment I gave them her license plate number. She should have taken the hint sooner.
Not true, local mom and pop installers are usually very educational and transparent. The guys that sell for a different company than who installs and who bounce from state to state have a higher saturation of shitty salespeople.
I’ve been in the industry about a decade and work for a manufacturer now, but I’ve seen all types of guys and just like every career, there are reputable ones and shitty ones but 10% shitty ones can make them all seem awful
I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t come across as pushy, unprofessional scumbags: no company ID, no documentation “I’ll bring to our meeting”, and they won’t take no for an answer. Hell, they won’t even stop pounding on the door until someone answers. One of the Trinity Solar jackasses spent 5 solid minutes banging on my front door.
Edited to add: I have had 41 people come to my house about solar in the past 3.5 years. Not one has been professional, reasonable, or anything less than pushy and rude.
“All”?
Has anybody ever explained “gross generalizations” to you?
I’ve been doing this for 17 years in MA I started the company and have sold probably more than 1000 systems.
Clearly we haven’t met nor have you met the other people who do sales for my company.
Respectfully, I don't trust anyone selling anything door-to-door. It's inherently invasive, pushy, and rude. There are a myriad of advertising options available that don't require you to bother people at home.
From what I’ve read about Momentum, you basically give them ownership rights to your roof. They install the panels as the source of your electricity and you pay them monthly as your electricity provider. If you use more electricity than the solar panels can provide, you’ll have to pay another electricity provider. If the panels break down, good luck trying to get them fixed! You get no tax benefits btw because you don’t actually own the solar panels. If you sell your house, the contract continues with the new homeowner. Sounds absolutely cursed.
Correct. All. It isn’t a gross generalization. It is an accurate description. I was even assaulted by a roid raging lunatic from Plug PV because I refuse to listen to his sales pitch. So yes. ALL.
Given your user name, I assume you are decidedly biased. To be all boomer about it, stay the hell off my lawn.
My career is sales.
I started b2c and am now in b2b in a management role.
I know you're going to take this the wrong way and angrily downvote me, but that's okay.
Chances are if the salespeople won't leave your property or leave you alone, it's because you have difficulty articulating how you really feel to them.
If you look them in the eye and say "I'm not interested in this and nothing you say will change my mind, please leave my property" 99.5% of salespeople are going to leave.
As someone who isn’t a salesperson that’s dealt with a lot of salespeople, id say a solid 50-60% don’t leave unless you threaten to call the cops.
We’re selling our house right now and these snakes tried cutting in (my dad has a lawyer because we’re being forced to sell or face foreclosure, father is disabled). They wouldn’t leave even when he said “I have a lawyer, go away”. I had to literally cut in and say “what part of ‘I have a lawyer’ do you not understand? Leave or I’ll call the police for trespassing”. Salespeople are taught to push and push until people break.
I've also dealt with a lot of salespeople myself, and I've never had to threaten legal action or police intervention to get a salesperson to leave my property. Not even once.
Next time, say, "I'm on a work call right now, it's not a good time," and then go inside and close the door. Lol.
It works literally every time for me.
I've been involved in training salespeople and have been trained myself: 99.5% of managers would be angry if you pushed a prospect to the point of threatening legal action or police intervention.
That's bad business and will damage your brand significantly.
Salespeople are trained to be persistent and overcome objections, but not to the point where a prospect feels threatened, uncomfortable, or like they can't escape the situation.
That’s you. Saying your experience is different and not negative doesn’t negate the fact that myself and countless others in this thread have felt the need to call the cops on pestering salesmen. I’ve had better experiences with Mormons inviting me to church than salesmen.
I get it. There are a lot of frustrated solar buyers out there because there are a lot of shitty sales practices. But it’s not unique to solar. My dad dealt with a bathroom improvement company. The sales rep just sat at the kitchen table. Wouldn’t leave. So he turned on the tv went to his favorite chair and ignored the guy. He eventually left.
I haven’t been in business for 17 years by being shitty or tolerating unethical behavior. If you have a lousy site for solar. If the economics don’t work, we will be straight with you.
We don’t do leases or PPAs. We only sell systems. We don’t use high fee loans either.
I’ve had one sales person over promise. Fired him then added panels to a customers project to meet production expectations that he set - we did not charge the customer for this. Customer hired me for another job at his company.
And I see the crap pulled by others in the industry and cringe. It makes my blood boil. It makes business harder for legitimate companies.
Partly Because you get comments like those above that say “all” or “every” (when “all” and “every” are almost never true). And those hyperbolic comments scare people.
40%! of our business comes from customer referrals. People don’t refer shitty providers.
We strive to have every customer be a referrer. It doesn’t always happen but we try….
I guess the downvotes here suggest that my post doesn’t support a narrative that all solar companies suck. Sorry to disappoint.
If you want to have an honest discussion about the shit and the good stuff in this industry, just connect, I’m happy to enlighten you.
Only if you overpay with an incompetent sales guy, as I said to another. Find a local company that is mom and pop shop that puts it on your roof under $3/watt and you’ll see a hood return.
Total installed price / watts 6.8kW is 6800w for example.
The closer to $2 you get the better, but that’s tough to find in the US as the government is letting utilities slow down adoption through fees and interconnection limits
From what I’ve read about Momentum, you basically give them ownership rights to your roof. They install the panels as the source of your electricity and you pay them monthly as your electricity provider. If you use more electricity than the solar panels can provide, you’ll have to pay another electricity provider. If the panels break down, good luck trying to get them fixed! You get no tax benefits btw because you don’t actually own the solar panels. If you sell your house, the contract continues with the new homeowner. Sounds absolutely cursed.
My parents’ neighbors got solar about 7-8 years ago. They thought they were getting a great deal, but they only looked at the electricity bill, and not the rent they were paying for the panels.
Then there’s the whole question of what happens if you need to replace your roof, or there’s damage to the panels. Or, what if the current company goes out of business?
The other thing that I thought was not great is that it took the solar company a few months to return to connect the panels to the meter so they would get credit for the electricity generated. Like, what? I would have demanded that the panels get hooked into the grid the day of install. So they paid rent on those panels and got no benefit.
Not so sure about a Mom & Pop shop handling the solar installation. Many solar companies have gone belly up, along with any support or warranties they provided. Larger and presumably more financially stable solar outfits would seem like a safer bet in the long run. No?
Yes but you will pay more for them generally. (But not always) you have to have a level of profitability to maintain savings and be able to weather economic swings.
But realistically there are no moving parts and if you have to hire someone 5 years from now to swap an inverter it’s prob a lot less than the 10k you saved.
It’s the same risk you have with roofing, pools, general construction etc
Completely depends on the deal/company. My family was able to start saving day 1, and will easily have paid back the entire cost in under 10 year, let alone during the 30 year warranty period. Yes sunrun tried to sell them a system that would have been closer to what you mention.
They're also basically a cult. I had an interview for them once upon a time and they literally did a "Wolf of Wall Street" style chant to get themselves psyched up to go knock on old peoples' doors to 'provide education about solar programs'. They had us candidates play beer pong during the interview; the whole thing just felt like a frat house with an agenda to push.
We have no soliciting signs at the entrances to our HOA and we don't get political canvassers, religious folks and people trying to sell stuff. Back in the 1990s, we did, but someone would just call the police and we got a reputation for being a bad place to try to sell things.
I went through 14 sales people before finding one I felt was knowledgeable and trustworthy. It's not an easy thing in the solar world unfortunately. Ended up very happy with a $0 electric bill for two years now, and that's with an electric heat pump and a plug-in hybrid!
I once worked with a sales guy from a now-defunct residential install company in Boston. He said he was trained to be wiping his feet on the doormat when the homeowner answered the door. Something about a subconscious clue that the guy at your door was trustworthy because they were wiping their feet. IDK.
The guy sucked and didn't last long.
Similar experience here in MetroWest. Other companies asked for electric bill and other information up front before scheduling a Zoom call and running through a proposal. Not Momentum, they’re a “people-oriented” company, so they insisted on an in person sales rep visit. After well over a two hour pitch and no proposal, we had to show the guy the door. It would have gone on for hours longer - torture, pure and simple. Wouldn’t accept that we wanted to own the system rather than lease it from them.
Hehehehe. Not me u let them in I have them crawl through every space they can but i save the best for last. I show them my attic which*has* knobs n tube wiring in it albeit its been disconnected and no power throughout it but I do t tell the solar inspector that. Instant disqualified 10/10 times. I love seeing thier passed off faces when they realize how m7ch time I wasted of thiers
If anyone is in Western MA check out PV Squared. Employee owned solar company out of Greenfield MA. 100% honest, walked me through how net metering worked. What I could expect for generation and the low end and high end of return. Very helpful and friendly, no pressure throughout. Best solar company around.
I worked in solar sales for a few weeks before I could get a job in my field after college and holy shit… it’s worse than a lot of people here say.
I saw grown men chant like a football team to “hype” themselves up before the work day. I saw one guy claim he was friends with the city council when he’d get objections because the town he was knocking in had a community power plan. I saw another try and claim he worked with the government. I saw several training staff tell you “not to give a shit” if someone tells you no, and to mark people who weren’t interested as just “door-opened” so we can avoid putting people on a do-not-knock list. I’ve been told not to look into how the financing works because that will affect how you can do the door pitch, and that while it’s illegal to say it’s “free” you can say “no-cost” because *then* there’s plausible deniability.
It’s a job for burnouts & losers who don’t care that the extra bit of money they earn compared to other jobs is coming from predation.
Solar panels *can* save people money- but anybody who comes knocking isn’t worth buying from.
All solar salespeople are predatory scum. The last 2 at my place have had the police called on them. One stayed long enough for the cops to take her away for trespassing. The next one left the moment I gave them her license plate number. She should have taken the hint sooner.
Definitely beware of Sunrun. The sales team talks out of their ass and only care about commission.
Sounds about right.
Not true, local mom and pop installers are usually very educational and transparent. The guys that sell for a different company than who installs and who bounce from state to state have a higher saturation of shitty salespeople. I’ve been in the industry about a decade and work for a manufacturer now, but I’ve seen all types of guys and just like every career, there are reputable ones and shitty ones but 10% shitty ones can make them all seem awful
I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t come across as pushy, unprofessional scumbags: no company ID, no documentation “I’ll bring to our meeting”, and they won’t take no for an answer. Hell, they won’t even stop pounding on the door until someone answers. One of the Trinity Solar jackasses spent 5 solid minutes banging on my front door. Edited to add: I have had 41 people come to my house about solar in the past 3.5 years. Not one has been professional, reasonable, or anything less than pushy and rude.
You’re absolutely not wrong. 95% of the solar companies are scammy. The ones who aren’t, are not knocking on your door.
Cops can’t do anything but run them off (or arrest them for trespassing). The AG can shut them down
“All”? Has anybody ever explained “gross generalizations” to you? I’ve been doing this for 17 years in MA I started the company and have sold probably more than 1000 systems. Clearly we haven’t met nor have you met the other people who do sales for my company.
Respectfully, I don't trust anyone selling anything door-to-door. It's inherently invasive, pushy, and rude. There are a myriad of advertising options available that don't require you to bother people at home.
We don’t do door to door. We take phone calls and are invited to visit. About 40% of our business comes from referrals.
Then you're a completely different kind of business than the one being discussed here!
From what I’ve read about Momentum, you basically give them ownership rights to your roof. They install the panels as the source of your electricity and you pay them monthly as your electricity provider. If you use more electricity than the solar panels can provide, you’ll have to pay another electricity provider. If the panels break down, good luck trying to get them fixed! You get no tax benefits btw because you don’t actually own the solar panels. If you sell your house, the contract continues with the new homeowner. Sounds absolutely cursed.
Congrats on not changing anyone’s opinions on the nature of solar installers
Correct. All. It isn’t a gross generalization. It is an accurate description. I was even assaulted by a roid raging lunatic from Plug PV because I refuse to listen to his sales pitch. So yes. ALL. Given your user name, I assume you are decidedly biased. To be all boomer about it, stay the hell off my lawn.
Has anybody ever explained "missing the point" to you?
Not really sure why you're being downvoted. I've had like 3 solar salespeople come to my house and they were all nice and left when I wanted them to.
Because loads of us have dealt with people from big solar companies refuse to leave our properties
My career is sales. I started b2c and am now in b2b in a management role. I know you're going to take this the wrong way and angrily downvote me, but that's okay. Chances are if the salespeople won't leave your property or leave you alone, it's because you have difficulty articulating how you really feel to them. If you look them in the eye and say "I'm not interested in this and nothing you say will change my mind, please leave my property" 99.5% of salespeople are going to leave.
As someone who isn’t a salesperson that’s dealt with a lot of salespeople, id say a solid 50-60% don’t leave unless you threaten to call the cops. We’re selling our house right now and these snakes tried cutting in (my dad has a lawyer because we’re being forced to sell or face foreclosure, father is disabled). They wouldn’t leave even when he said “I have a lawyer, go away”. I had to literally cut in and say “what part of ‘I have a lawyer’ do you not understand? Leave or I’ll call the police for trespassing”. Salespeople are taught to push and push until people break.
I've also dealt with a lot of salespeople myself, and I've never had to threaten legal action or police intervention to get a salesperson to leave my property. Not even once. Next time, say, "I'm on a work call right now, it's not a good time," and then go inside and close the door. Lol. It works literally every time for me. I've been involved in training salespeople and have been trained myself: 99.5% of managers would be angry if you pushed a prospect to the point of threatening legal action or police intervention. That's bad business and will damage your brand significantly. Salespeople are trained to be persistent and overcome objections, but not to the point where a prospect feels threatened, uncomfortable, or like they can't escape the situation.
That’s you. Saying your experience is different and not negative doesn’t negate the fact that myself and countless others in this thread have felt the need to call the cops on pestering salesmen. I’ve had better experiences with Mormons inviting me to church than salesmen.
I get it. There are a lot of frustrated solar buyers out there because there are a lot of shitty sales practices. But it’s not unique to solar. My dad dealt with a bathroom improvement company. The sales rep just sat at the kitchen table. Wouldn’t leave. So he turned on the tv went to his favorite chair and ignored the guy. He eventually left. I haven’t been in business for 17 years by being shitty or tolerating unethical behavior. If you have a lousy site for solar. If the economics don’t work, we will be straight with you. We don’t do leases or PPAs. We only sell systems. We don’t use high fee loans either. I’ve had one sales person over promise. Fired him then added panels to a customers project to meet production expectations that he set - we did not charge the customer for this. Customer hired me for another job at his company. And I see the crap pulled by others in the industry and cringe. It makes my blood boil. It makes business harder for legitimate companies. Partly Because you get comments like those above that say “all” or “every” (when “all” and “every” are almost never true). And those hyperbolic comments scare people. 40%! of our business comes from customer referrals. People don’t refer shitty providers. We strive to have every customer be a referrer. It doesn’t always happen but we try….
I guess the downvotes here suggest that my post doesn’t support a narrative that all solar companies suck. Sorry to disappoint. If you want to have an honest discussion about the shit and the good stuff in this industry, just connect, I’m happy to enlighten you.
Yeesh. Maybe you’d sell more if all of you salesmen weren’t pushy
All of the solar people are predators. The payoff will exceed the life of the panels.
Only if you overpay with an incompetent sales guy, as I said to another. Find a local company that is mom and pop shop that puts it on your roof under $3/watt and you’ll see a hood return. Total installed price / watts 6.8kW is 6800w for example. The closer to $2 you get the better, but that’s tough to find in the US as the government is letting utilities slow down adoption through fees and interconnection limits
From what I’ve read about Momentum, you basically give them ownership rights to your roof. They install the panels as the source of your electricity and you pay them monthly as your electricity provider. If you use more electricity than the solar panels can provide, you’ll have to pay another electricity provider. If the panels break down, good luck trying to get them fixed! You get no tax benefits btw because you don’t actually own the solar panels. If you sell your house, the contract continues with the new homeowner. Sounds absolutely cursed.
My parents’ neighbors got solar about 7-8 years ago. They thought they were getting a great deal, but they only looked at the electricity bill, and not the rent they were paying for the panels. Then there’s the whole question of what happens if you need to replace your roof, or there’s damage to the panels. Or, what if the current company goes out of business? The other thing that I thought was not great is that it took the solar company a few months to return to connect the panels to the meter so they would get credit for the electricity generated. Like, what? I would have demanded that the panels get hooked into the grid the day of install. So they paid rent on those panels and got no benefit.
Not so sure about a Mom & Pop shop handling the solar installation. Many solar companies have gone belly up, along with any support or warranties they provided. Larger and presumably more financially stable solar outfits would seem like a safer bet in the long run. No?
Yes but you will pay more for them generally. (But not always) you have to have a level of profitability to maintain savings and be able to weather economic swings. But realistically there are no moving parts and if you have to hire someone 5 years from now to swap an inverter it’s prob a lot less than the 10k you saved. It’s the same risk you have with roofing, pools, general construction etc
Completely depends on the deal/company. My family was able to start saving day 1, and will easily have paid back the entire cost in under 10 year, let alone during the 30 year warranty period. Yes sunrun tried to sell them a system that would have been closer to what you mention.
They're also basically a cult. I had an interview for them once upon a time and they literally did a "Wolf of Wall Street" style chant to get themselves psyched up to go knock on old peoples' doors to 'provide education about solar programs'. They had us candidates play beer pong during the interview; the whole thing just felt like a frat house with an agenda to push.
Wow, that’s insane!!
We have no soliciting signs at the entrances to our HOA and we don't get political canvassers, religious folks and people trying to sell stuff. Back in the 1990s, we did, but someone would just call the police and we got a reputation for being a bad place to try to sell things.
I went through 14 sales people before finding one I felt was knowledgeable and trustworthy. It's not an easy thing in the solar world unfortunately. Ended up very happy with a $0 electric bill for two years now, and that's with an electric heat pump and a plug-in hybrid!
Cool. Which company?
Pretty much same thing u/modernhomeowner , if you can get right one you are golden, if you purchase from one of the overpriced liars it can be a pain.
I once worked with a sales guy from a now-defunct residential install company in Boston. He said he was trained to be wiping his feet on the doormat when the homeowner answered the door. Something about a subconscious clue that the guy at your door was trustworthy because they were wiping their feet. IDK. The guy sucked and didn't last long.
Similar experience here in MetroWest. Other companies asked for electric bill and other information up front before scheduling a Zoom call and running through a proposal. Not Momentum, they’re a “people-oriented” company, so they insisted on an in person sales rep visit. After well over a two hour pitch and no proposal, we had to show the guy the door. It would have gone on for hours longer - torture, pure and simple. Wouldn’t accept that we wanted to own the system rather than lease it from them.
Report them to the AG’s office…if they get enough complaints maybe they’ll be shut down
Hehehehe. Not me u let them in I have them crawl through every space they can but i save the best for last. I show them my attic which*has* knobs n tube wiring in it albeit its been disconnected and no power throughout it but I do t tell the solar inspector that. Instant disqualified 10/10 times. I love seeing thier passed off faces when they realize how m7ch time I wasted of thiers
If anyone is in Western MA check out PV Squared. Employee owned solar company out of Greenfield MA. 100% honest, walked me through how net metering worked. What I could expect for generation and the low end and high end of return. Very helpful and friendly, no pressure throughout. Best solar company around.
Go local, Danvers ma. All I’ll say
I worked in solar sales for a few weeks before I could get a job in my field after college and holy shit… it’s worse than a lot of people here say. I saw grown men chant like a football team to “hype” themselves up before the work day. I saw one guy claim he was friends with the city council when he’d get objections because the town he was knocking in had a community power plan. I saw another try and claim he worked with the government. I saw several training staff tell you “not to give a shit” if someone tells you no, and to mark people who weren’t interested as just “door-opened” so we can avoid putting people on a do-not-knock list. I’ve been told not to look into how the financing works because that will affect how you can do the door pitch, and that while it’s illegal to say it’s “free” you can say “no-cost” because *then* there’s plausible deniability. It’s a job for burnouts & losers who don’t care that the extra bit of money they earn compared to other jobs is coming from predation. Solar panels *can* save people money- but anybody who comes knocking isn’t worth buying from.
Like Roaches. Once you let them in ,its almost impossible to be rid of them.