It’s a green future if the Biden Administration has its way, as the left continues its assault on fossil fuels in search of a shiny, carbon-neutral future. Of course, the infrastructure and technology are decades away, if ever, from being reliable enough to run the power grid, but that isn’t stopping Joe Biden from charging like Don Quixote at, ironically, windmills.
With new technologies, invariably, new companies will pop up offering to provide services aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The unfortunate downside is that when new companies pop up, they aren’t always above board with their intent or business practices.
One such company is Sunnova. Sunnova is a solar company that offers to put solar panels on customer’s roofs, often requiring numerous years of leases to be signed to facilitate the installation. All of this is well and good if it is a young homeowner looking to go solar that will be in their homes long enough to pay off the leases.
The problem is that Sunnova has been accused of bilking seniors, often dementia patients, on their deathbeds into signing costly multi-year leases that they can’t possibly live long enough to fulfill. Another problem is the Biden Administration funds the company, as Joe Biden’s White House gave the company a $3 billion dollar loan.
One Texas resident named Terry Blythe reported that a door-to-door salesman for the company persuaded her father, who is an 86-year-old dementia patient, into signing a 25-year solar lease. When her father passed away this year, Blythe was stuck with the $34,000 contract.
She said about the situation: “It was truly ripping off old people. It was the biggest ripoff I’ve ever seen.” To further exacerbate the problem, her parent’s home was in disrepair in a low-income area. When Blythe had to sell the house to pay for her mother’s assisted living, she had to take a significant price cut because no buyer was willing to take on the balance of the solar contract.
Blythe continued: “If I can’t recoup the money my mom needs, at least maybe I can help others that they might scam. The fact that they were just awarded that much money from the government is sickening.”
Blythe isn’t alone: more than 50 consumer complaints have been filed against the company for issues ranging from maintenance delays to predatory sales tactics. Biden’s DOE’s Loan Programs Office is facing scrutiny from Congress over potential conflicts of interest involving the $3 billion federal loan to Sunnova Energy.
The largest-ever DOE commitment to a solar company is designed to market solar panels to “disadvantaged homeowners and communities,” but thus far, the sales practice of the company has been shady, at best.
Another complainant reported that a salesman for the company visited her elderly father, who only had months to live, and persuaded him to take on a $60,000 solar system for his trailer. Mary Loller said: “My dad told [the salesman] at that time he was on hospice and dying. And basically, he wasn’t in his right mind.”
After her father passed away, the company put a lien on the home, preventing the family from selling it. It is a shady situation being perpetrated by a shady company. Most alarming is it is a shady company propped up by Joe Biden.
It remains to be seen how these cases will play out or if the Biden DOE will take responsibility for whom they give money to, but it is a bad look for an industry that needs all of the good press it can get.
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