Solar Installer Panel Bait & Switch, Company also Pulled the Wrong Loan Info and Hit my Credit

Let me start off by saying that I’m not looking to chastise any companies, just wanting to share my story and will update this post as this is ongoing.

So, met with a few companies ~4 months ago for quotes and decided on a local company since they were a decent price and knew the utility company in my area. All was well. Went through the solar company’s hoops of deciding on financing through what I’m calling “Loan A”. Got docs submitted to the respective City/Utility and waited.

Plans were 13 Solaria 400W panels ~5.2kw Solaredge Solar Optimizers with a Solaredge 5000W inverter

It was in this wait that I decided to change loan companies as it would actually save me money. I asked the solar company and they said this was totally fine since they hadn’t submitted anything. I checked and Loan A was not made aware of anything as the solar company hadn’t submitted the application for financing and they wouldn’t until the panels were installed. So we voided Loan A, and setup Loan B.

Two more months go by and we finally have approval from the City and Utility for install. We get that scheduled for a Friday. As it turns out it’s raining that day, so they reschedule for Saturday. Totally fine and understandable. Now I’m home the entire time on Saturday, and had gone out to look at what was going on with the install, you know, just to check the progress type of thing, but didn’t really interact with the installers other than a wave here and there; since they were on the roof. They never rang the doorbell, they never asked me any questions and so I thought all was fine.

Cut to about a half hour after they left, I walk outside and notice the panels look a little different. Mainly the orientation from the CAD drawings is entirely wrong. So I get my ladder and go to check out the roof to make sure there aren’t any cracked tiles and the like. What I found was actually: 13 VSUN 400w panels 1 entirely missing tile 3 cracked (but recently caulked) tiles

Now that’s a bit different from the 13 Solaria 400w panels in our service agreement, so I did some googling and text the rep I was working with. Long story short, they have “no idea” how or why they would have installed those panels. But when they got back to me on Monday they also made the comment they have no Solaria panels in stock and wait times are 1-3 months, so they aren’t sure why they moved forward with the install. Our agreement does not state tier 1 equivalent it states only Solaria 400W’s.

So I’ve been given the choice between keeping these panels and they’ll give me a check for the difference and might relocate one panel for me because where the installers put doesn’t appear to be up to code. Or I can wait the 1-3 months, and they’ll come re-rack everything, putting more wear on the roof…

Jump to Tuesday, and I get an email from the credit bureau that I have a new hard inquiry from, you guessed it, Loan A… The solar company messed up and didn’t switch the loan with the installers, so when the installers pulled the funds it came from the wrong company. I’ve now got to go back and forth with Loan A to try and get this resolved and figure out how to get a hard inquiry off my credit report before Loan B tries to pull my info.

TLDR; Solar company dropped the ball on swapping financing companies, so the wrong (and voided) loan company ran my credit and is looking for me to start payments. Installers swapped Solaria panels for VSUN panels either thinking I wouldn’t notice or out of complete lack of care/transparency.

Feel free to let me know what I should do or if you want more details.