Insurance on solar panels beware.

Iwanttobefree

Here's an interesting one.

A good retired friend of mine paid to have solar panels installed in 2004.

The company that installed them has since gone bust.

Last week he received a call from Elite Energy in Norwich, saying that as the company had gone bust, he no longer has any guarantee should things go wrong.

The company said they were an electrical company, not a solar company and they were offering free inspections. My friend made an appointment for this morning on the understanding they were not trying to sell anything.

The guy arrived, looked at (but didn't touch) their existing system, said it had cheap Chinese inverters that they are replacing almost daily. Looked through my friends paperwork from the existing installation, and said that he (salesman) is right, they don't have any cover.

He was then there for 3 hours (not an exaggeration) in total hard selling them insurance, and my friend ended up signing (and paying on his credit card) just over £1900 for a 15 year guarantee, that included a yearly inspection of the inverters etc. A big part of why he paid was he was told if he didn't sign now, the price would be £300 higher tomorrow.

The guy made an appointment for the first inspection for next Tuesday.

My wife dropped me off there about 30 mins after the man had gone, which is a shame.

I went through my friends original installation paperwork, and it included certificates from Hies https://www.hiesscheme.org.uk/

This clearly said in the event of the supplier ceasing trading, he was fully covered until 2024, including his guarantee.

I phoned Hies on his behalf, and sure enough they had all his details down, when I told them, they were less than amused. They said it is a complete con, there's nothing to inspect on the inverters, you can see if they are working by simply looking at whether you are generating electricity or not.

They said that not only is he covered by a guarentee until 2024, there's also manufactures guarantee of 20 years on the equipment (or something like that)

She said that a while back, a database was hacked, and every day they are getting similar calls. They only target people whose original suppliers have gone bankrupt. She advised to phone the credit card company (he did, they can't do anything as payment is pending, but once it''s gone through, if company wont refund, to phone back), to report to trading standards through citizens advice (I will do this) and to phone the company and demand a refund.

She then said she would add Elite Electrical to her ever growing list of companies conning people.

She also said that had he let them in next Tuesday to inspect the system, as soon as they touch the system, the Hies warranty would have been void.

He phoned Elite Electrical Norwich, they said they would be happy to deal with trading standards as every thing they do is legit (such as saying they are not trying to sell anything, go through the paper work and lie about him not being covered, sit there for 3 hrs and offer a sign now or pay more deal etc.

They were still adamant on that he's not at all covered. He asked them to refund the payment to his credit card, they said their payment system doesn't allow that and they need his sort code and bank account. He said he's not giving it to them and would claim through his credit card.

Looking at them, they are a very small electrical company. Unlike the original installers who were covered with Hies, they don't appear to be registered with anyone, so if they went bust in a years time, he would have zero comeback for the remaining years.

The salesman claimed he had been going all around Norfolk with no end of clients.