ORLANDO, Fla. — A central Florida woman contacted Action 9 after her home solar system suddenly stopped working. She told Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal the companies responsible for making sure the panels were up and running didn’t take care of the problem right away.
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While renovating her small home near Poinciana, Connie White-Carter decided to have solar installed on her roof after her friend raved about Meraki Solar and the advantages of using the Florida sunshine to generate power.
Connie White-Carter said, “Let me know just how much money she was saving on her electric. She lives in Lakeland, so she was, you know, she was praising them.”
But in early September around two years after the panels were installed, she received a big electricity bill that was nearly $500. That’s when she realized the panels weren’t working at all and they hadn’t been generating electricity since July 23rd.
“For the most part, up until this point, we are happy. We’re absolutely happy,” she said.
What made White-Carter unhappy was initially trying to reach anyone from the company for help. Her calls to Meraki were rerouted to a company in California called Freedom Forever which has entered into a partnership with Meraki. Freedom Forever told Action 9 it’s now the official subcontractor for Meraki.
She claims Freedom Forever informed her it would monitor the system and that it could be twenty days before someone would contact her.
Connie White-Carter didn’t think that was soon enough and said, “I still need to make my loan payment, and I still need to make this big fat electric bill. I need some help. I can’t get a hold of these guys.”
Meraki Solar has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau. Freedom Forever has a “C” rating with a pattern of complaints about panels not fully installed or not working.
Freedom Forever sent a long response to the BBB that states in part:
We are by all accounts, the gold standard in solar installations. We understand that from the sheer volume of solar projects we install, some consumers will be unhappy. There is no pleasing everyone.
The full statement is available on the BBB website: Freedom Forever, LLC | Better Business Bureau® Profile
After Action 9 sent messages to both companies about the issue, Freedom Forever sent a technician to replace the inverter at Connie White-Carter’s home. The company said it did a remote diagnostic test and initiated the replacement under the manufacturer’s warranty. Her system is now fully operational.
White-Carter is glad to have the system is back up and running , but she says the Meraki sales team promised to refund her monthly solar payments during the months the system is down, but so far that hasn’t happened.
“I feel jilted. I feel angry. I feel like there was a lot of false promises made,” she said.
In her contract with Meraki, Action 9 couldn’t find a mention of that reimbursement policy, but she showed Action 9 paperwork indicating her friend did receive reimbursement. Meraki Solar has not responded to Action 9′s inquiry about those payments or why the system isn’t set up to alert the company or owner when the system stops working.