Genius Energy, Solihull

[JulianC]

Anyone come across this outfit? Just rescued a friend of a work colleague of the wife (!) from signing up to them. A 3.75kW Solarworld system (curiously using Suntech 245 panels and a Samil inverter, but no matter, his roof isn't big enough for anything near that size) for nearly £12k. They'd encouraged the customer to take out their finance package, amounting to a total price of over £23k. He would have been paying them £1550 per year for 15 years but no matter, because after the system is paid for, he stands to make £40k profit.

I take it that reporting these crooks to RECC is a waste of time, since matey boy hasn't actually been ripped off? **** like this makes me ****ing livid.

 

[telectrix]

these sharks want reporting to trading standards. first it was double glazing, then burglar alarms, now solar. only advice i can give is never buy from cold callers, suits, salesmen, and always get 3 quotes. research the company, ask for referrals if they've got any installations locally,

 

[Worcester]

Its worse that that RECC etc don't care what price the customer pays, they only care that you follow their procedure, not more than 2 hours, 7 day cooling off etc, the rest is caveat emptor.... So they may not have broken any RECC or MCS rules, unless the returns specified are not achievable. if those are wrong it's a slap on the wrist and don;t do it again...

Can anyone name me one organisation pursued / struck off by RECC that hasn't re-emerged and started trading again within days?
Actually can anyone name me one organisation struck off by RECC?

 

[Gavin A]

Anyone come across this outfit? Just rescued a friend of a work colleague of the wife (!) from signing up to them. A 3.75kW Solarworld system (curiously using Suntech 245 panels and a Samil inverter, but no matter, his roof isn't big enough for anything near that size) for nearly £12k. They'd encouraged the customer to take out their finance package, amounting to a total price of over £23k. He would have been paying them £1550 per year for 15 years but no matter, because after the system is paid for, he stands to make £40k profit.

I take it that reporting these crooks to RECC is a waste of time, since matey boy hasn't actually been ripped off? **** like this makes me ****ing livid.

no please report them.

 

[SolarCity]

I am well aware of Genius. They're an utter joke of an outfit.

I met their gaffer around three years ago before they had started. He wanted us to work with him installing PV systems on a day rate. We didn't even get round to discussing prices as when I casually told him that I was working for £200 a day in London he remarked "£200 a day?! And they paid it you?!". I'm guessing that he was thinking of paying us less than that which would have clearly been a waste of our time in those days.

We lost a flat roof job to them a couple of years ago. The 'designer' of the system actually got north and south mixed up and threw a system together which was utterly laughable. The customer then came back to us and asked for help, which we provided. The system is still not ideal - they have installed too many panels in too small an area. But Genius were incapable of sorting it out. They changed the inverter for a Power One 3.0 to take advantage of the dual MPP tracking yet designed it in such a way that one of the string never worked.

Apparently the gaffer is making an absolute fortune which I have to admit is a bitter pill to swallow.

 

[dansk]

Apparently the gaffer is making an absolute fortune which I have to admit is a bitter pill to swallow.

which is so often the case, fortune favours the brave. I'm not brave enough to rip folk off.

 

[SolarCity]

Have a read of this.

Lee Bould | Genius Energy

"a few financial figures myself and my partner, Phil Moore, scribed on the back of a smoke packet nearly three years ago"
That pretty accurately describes their design and quoting process, funnily enough.

"In fact I was recently chosen to help Greg Barker (Minister of State for Climate Change) and a number of key UK solar industry players including the chairman of the British Photovoltaic Association, Reza Shaybani, and Paul Barwell, CEO of the Solar Trade Association (STA), lobby the European Commission (EC) over proposed plans to impose trade duties on Chinese-manufactured solar products."


​Does anyone know if the above is true? Surely not.

 

[Gavin A]

by chosen, he would mean he volunteered, and he could well have been picked by BPVA to go on one of the industry panels DECC set up - BPVA asked me to go on that, but it was around the same time that I was being annoyed with them for failing to do anything about the G83/2 issues I'd raised, and I didn't fancy my chances of sitting in a room with DECC without lamping one of the smug old boy network gits.

 

[SpitfireW'sale]

We supplied their kit up to around the end of 2012 so know them well. It was a different arrangement then though and didn't have the same finance model that they have now, they were more like a regular installation company. It is true they are one of the biggest installers in the country now, apparently now over 50 installs per week. I'm not defending them if the £23K price tag is true, but it doesn't look like they are breaking any rules? Not sure what (if anything) you can do unless it is being mis-sold?

 

[JulianC]

I'm not defending them if the £23K price tag is true, but it doesn't look like they are breaking any rules? Not sure what (if anything) you can do unless it is being mis-sold?

So you don't think telling the customer he stands to make "£41,000 profit" after Genius have taken their £23k cut (which is true by the way - I don't make this **** up for fun) is perhaps stretching the truth a teensie wee bit?

 

[SolarCity]

50 installs a week? I find that incredibly sad.

I wonder how many of those are mis-sold? And consequently, how big a stain on the industry they will leave behind when they finally decide to ride off into the sunset?

 

[Gavin A]

We supplied their kit up to around the end of 2012 so know them well. It was a different arrangement then though and didn't have the same finance model that they have now, they were more like a regular installation company. It is true they are one of the biggest installers in the country now, apparently now over 50 installs per week. I'm not defending them if the £23K price tag is true, but it doesn't look like they are breaking any rules? Not sure what (if anything) you can do unless it is being mis-sold?

as Julian says, if they're saying £41k profit, then that is miss selling, and people wouldn't part with that much cash without those sorts of payback predictions.

I suspect that may have been meant to be £41k income and savings rather than profit.

 

[SpitfireW'sale]

So you don't think telling the customer he stands to make "£41,000 profit" after Genius have taken their £23k cut (which is true by the way - I don't make this **** up for fun) is perhaps stretching the truth a teensie wee bit?

I do - As I said, I am not defending them! Please don't think I want to see this kind of selling in the industry because I absolutely do not. The figures of 41K profit are clearly wildly inaccurate for a 4kW system, if that is enough to break RECC/MCS rules how is it they have grown to be selling more systems than pretty much any other installer in the country? Is it purely because they (MCS) are not interested or have they played the system somehow?

 

[Gavin A]

I do - As I said, I am not defending them! Please don't think I want to see this kind of selling in the industry because I absolutely do not. The figures of 41K profit are clearly wildly inaccurate for a 4kW system, if that is enough to break RECC/MCS rules how is it they have grown to be selling more systems than pretty much any other installer in the country? Is it purely because they (MCS) are not interested or have they played the system somehow?

MCS and RECC have minimal teeth, and there's no specific guidance on payback calcs other than they have to be able to justify it and provide the assumptions used, or some such thing.

Unfortunately it's not something that anyone wants to push to hard on otherwise we'll end up all having to follow the DECC / EST / STA line on thing where they don't account for inflation at all in the payback figures, which is a ridiculous way of assessing the payback for domestic customers.

If Julian or anyone else can get me an example of their payback calcs, if they are taking the **** via the inflation thing, then I could try raising it with the MCS steering group next time, but it is a proper can of worms to be opening.

If they're just blatantly overestimating on performance then that's a lot more straightforward to sort out.

ps - as to how they got so big, well if they're able to offer a much greater return on investment than the rest of us, that's obviously a bit of an advantage... plus they probably just have a big sales team. 50 a week's only 10 sales guys, and if they're doing minimal design work then it's probably pretty straightforward. Obviously they'll end up with underperforming systems where there's shading, systems that won't fit etc etc but these companies work to different rules on that sort of thing - they have the profit margins to cover a few balls ups, and are reliant on the sales team to generate the work, rather than word of mouth, so bad feedback etc doesn't really affect them as much.

I could be wrong, maybe they're really doing everything by the book, but not from the sounds of this thread.... from what you say, I suspect they may have teamed up with a sales team a couple of years back, to move them from a decent company to a sales led company just servicing a big sales team. We had similar approaches around that time and knocked them back as it's not how we want to operate, but I can well see why someone in 2012 might have decided to take the money rather than going bust as half the industry did.

 

[SolarCity]

Simple. They've set up a business which is incredibly prolific at selling PV systems.

MCS aren't an obstacle to this - they are a facilitator.