That’s what I’m curious about. It would be extremely difficult to prove ownership of an email address that isn’t used regularly and publicly. I am not familiar with the electronic signature laws, but this seems like one area that would be extremely hard to prove in court in a case like this.
That could possibly be innocent -- a conversation that goes like "Okay, and we need an email to send you the contract." "Email? I don't think I have that." "Oh, okay, that's fine, I can help you get a free email account." It's still sleazy to sell to an elderly person who may not understand what they're signing, but the fact that it was a new unknown account isn't necessarily *proof* of malfeasance.
If it was my family member I would argue that at the woman’s age and given the contractual obligations it doesn’t make any sense. Hence the woman was not mentally fit to have been bound to such an agreement. Therefore the contract is voided. Why would a 90 year old person sign a 25 year old contract? I would like to see a solar company explain that to a judge.
@Jonathan Brown Grandmothers are often confused about tech words. It's very normal for older folks to be confused about the difference betweeen, say, email, gmail, hotmail, and google.
@@sammhill8686 I used to think so but don't anymore. It just depends on where you live, how much sun they get and how much you pay for them. Sometimes they actually seem to make sense and if you're a "green hearted" person you might be fine with paying extra for the "privelage" of going greener. Yeaa well, don't get me started on the actual green..nes of the manufacturing of the actual panels though :D
@@tetryl1 True performance has a lot to do with it but the second a "company" gets involved they become a scam. I have yet to find a solar company that doesn't try to make 500% percent on the job or more through these convoluted deals.
My first thought on seeing the title was Bible Scam (second thought was telecom services as this is all too common with phone and cable/satellite tv providers - "oh, no, you cannot cancel, only the contracted customer can... And, no, we won't pay attention to a death certificate...")
This reminds me when my grandma passed away at the nursing home. My dad got the final bill from them. He called director of nursing & asked if his mom passed about 3am, how did she take her 10am medication? And was charged big bucks for. Answer was sorry, we'll remove that charge. Wonder how many people never caught that.
Probably something as simple as how their billing system works. Everything your grandmother was going to receive that day she was billed for, even though she didn't make it to 11:59 PM. And then it takes a human to step in and go... nope.
Not that I am saying this is a reason because I have seen first hand death being an opportunity to run up charges - but medication is such a small amount.... It is possible that they were getting ready for the next day at the end of the previous day and they were putting the medications into the distribution and verifying to make sure the med allocations and types were correct before 3am, just that it was never consumed ... but they would already have a record of the distribution of such meds.
@Eric Matson Not true. hospitals and collection agencies CAN put a lien on your home for unpaid bills. Some states have certain limitations, but they can all take steps to collect payment.
My late husband died in 2013. In 2016 he had a warrant out for his arrest, for failure to appear in court. 😆😆 He would have loved it. He once got arrested (not charged) for vandalism in Missouri, and proving his innocence with his passport, he was in Austria at the time of the vandalism, was one of his favorite stories.
What "evidence" was the prosecutor relying on *if your husband wasn't even in the country at the time of the crime???* He didn't commit the crime, *so the prosecutor could not have had ANY evidence against him!!!*
Mobile phone company in South Africa refused to accept that my Mother-in-Law had passed. We kept getting letters of demand. I eventually was able to get her billing/domicile address changed to the burial plot number in the cemetry, including the street address. I got the idea to do this after I had to meet with the Cemetary Manager and noticed a huge stack of un-opened post on his shelf and was told it was all addressed to "residents".
I played "dumb" when a solar salesman came all the way down my road ( I have a farm ) I have had solar on properties for years. He flat out lied to me about benefits, installation costs including saying the contact could be exited at anytime (directly says in contract that it can't). I just nodded and nodded - the final push for a sig was major. The next day he returned climbing over my locked gate. He left when I called the sheriff (not 911). I made a complaint to the State. I suspect fraud is common in siding, used cars and solar.
When my grandmother passed away in 2010 at 91, my aunt had to fight for months to get her satellite tv contract canceled. It was ridiculous. She finally sent a letter that said she was sorry but her dead mother would not be making any payments on the contract, along with another copy of the death certificate, to the highest level executive at the company. That's what it took to get the contract canceled and I swore that I would never do business with that company.
Worked at dish, Not as long ago so policy was probable different (Honestly, your issue came from dish or direct) I didnt process canceling contracts of the deceased myself but I did make people aware of what they would need before I transferred them to the people that did that, the main requirement was you had to mail (I believe email was accepted later but not sure) a copy of the death cert. Long story short: All they care about is your money, no matter how they get it, they'll comply with the law, but skirt around it
In Australia. Some years ago, my mother-in-law was coerced into signing up to a new telephone contract by a door-knocker. As she was suffering middle stage dementia, she had no real idea what she was signing. It only failed to go through because she had no drivers license to confirm her identity. My wife tore the company a new one as her was sure the door-knocker would have known from talking to her that she was not all there mentally.
We had a similar case with my godfather, he had had a significant stroke, could barely speak and was obviously impaired, we held financial & medical POA and one day found a new credit card in his mail. We called the bank and told them to cancel it and remove him from their call lists etc and they refused to do so saying he had agreed over the phone etc. We asked them to listen to the recording of the phone call and get back to us before we had time to report them to the consumer watchdog groups. They called back about an hour later with full apologies and said that they would "talk" to the person who signed him up for the card. Best we can figure is was a foreign call centre who tried to take advantage of an old man.
Seriously sounds like a scam that almost happened to my parents when my grandmother passed away. A company installed something on my grandmother's home, and said she had signed an electronic contract, and provided a copy of the emailed contract supposedly sent from her email. Long story short, the sleazebag looked at the obituaries, and did a public information search and found my "grandmother's" email. They then created a false contract and through the use of a digital sender, "emailed" a copy of the contract to themselves but filled in my grandmother's email address in the "From" field. Where it fell apart was my grandmother, god rest her soul, never knew she had an email address let alone ever touched a computer/cell phone. It was setup by my mother, who was the only one who had access, as her power of attorney to process certain matters.
The word "sleazebag" doesn't even scratch the surface on describing him. This may be harsh, but knowing that if he had ever got caught scamming in NIGERIA by their anti scam police, that he'd have been executed, I say send him there then bait him to get caught scamming. People who scam the elderly deserve to die
There's a scam where cowboy companies do work that wasn't asked for and then claim it has increased the value of the property. I don't think that's a valid argument, because if you didn't ask for it, they were trespassing. That means they had criminal intent from the start.
Not just the SA, but also get consumer protection bureau(s) and utility commission snooping as well. Maybe they could work together to help gather evidence for the SA, while really turning the screws on the company in the meantime.
@@darrenw2803, those deals are set up as payment plans. You pay nothing up front for the panels, but pay for them by buying the electricity they produce over a period of time. It makes them affordable to people who can’t manage the entire cost of the panels and installation up front.
i used to work for a pizza joint as a delivery driver. on one of my deliveries i got to the house and all the occupant were crying and did not know who bought and paid for the pizza i brought. it was at this point one them realized what had happened. her father had ordered and paid for pizza for the family and then immediately passed away. one of my most awkward deliveries.
This is the reason I told my grandparents that if anyone came to their house for anything to tell the individual that they must talk to me first. This saved my grandparents from so many bad actors. I despise people who that advantage of the elderly.
Wouldn’t selling a 25 year contract to a 91 year old woman be enough to indicate shenanigans? My solar panels were connected to an 80 gallon hot water tank which dropped my electric bill so much that a person was out there checking my meter every day. Finally, I received a letter *demanding* to know why my electric bill was so low. LOL. If your energy is electric, heating and *keeping* water hot may well be the biggest drain on electricity in the house. It takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of water and it is constantly turning on to maintain the set temperature. Using solar panels to heat water more directly affects the cost of electricity rather than generating energy for the profit of others. At the time we had panels installed, they were easy to get and pretty cheap. Then the electric companies did two things: they changed their names to *energy* companies and, across the country, they bought up the solar panel businesses which were small, independent businesses simply to close them down. 15 years later it was impossible to find the replacement part to fix a panel. When I sold the house even later, the real estate agent said I should junk them because they decreased the value of the house. Im glad to see solar panels are coming back but I’m sorry to see they are sold the pressure tactics of vacuum salesmen instead of the inventive, enthusiastic young people who installed mine.
"Wouldn’t selling a 25 year contract to a 91 year old woman be enough to indicate shenanigans?" In this case, certainly. However, if we want to play the "theoretical" game I can see a situation where it might not be: Let's say that the lady had her last child when she was about 40, and they didn't have a home or apartment because they were travelling all the time. (This sounds like me-I was on the road between two and three weeks every month, and I was technically living at home. It made no sense to rent an apartment I only saw about 10 days a month. It made more sense to pay mom almost that much in rent money, in addition to assuming some of the bills). In her will, I was to get the house when she died, so let's say the lady had the same arrangement. If she and her child (we'll call them "Norbert") sat down and talked about it and he agreed, then I could see it not being shenanigans, but that's also the case where everybody understands what's going on.
Lmao you should've given them a crazy answer like: "Well, I'm a contract killer and business has been bad lately. I usually use 4 deep freezers but I'm currently only using 1. Oh not to mention I don't have to double wash my clothes anymore. I appreciate your concern though, feel free to stop by anytime." Yeah I know I sound nuts but I love messing with people lol.
ADT Home Security wouldn't let my mother out of their contract when she died. I settled her last bill up to the day she died, then sold her home. But ADT wasn't happy with that and kept sending me bills and threats for over a year before they finally gave up.
I had them install a security system with iirc a two year service contract. A couple months later I got an unsolicited offer that I couldn't refuse. I would have been on the hook for the service if the new homeowner didn't sign up with them.
@@birdlady2725 I don't really remember, this was around 2000. The system was paid upfront, the contract was for the monthly service. I remember being surprised that they would let him use the equipment if he signed with him, because that had not been my experience (they were somewhat older units though).
My blood pressure jumps a few points whenever someone claims to be unable to do something when it is painfully obvious that there are perfectly able, just unwilling.
Yeah, I dealt with "obvious hypocrisy and lies" stuff like that as a child. Grownups would severely criticize and ridicule ME for saying I felt too scared or tired to do something, yet THEY would then decline to help ME with something, using these very same "I don't feel like it" excuses!
@@chrisbaker8533 You don't have a clue about that, and I suspect it's because you don't have a clue how much you don't know and how many assumptions you're making. You don't know what she was actually paying to the utility, so you don't know if it was actually costing her more. You don't know if she was willing to pay a little more to use renewable energy. You don't know if it was a rent to own plan that would mean she owned the panels and got free electricity when the contract was up. You don't know if somebody knocked on her door to sell her solar panels or if she called to ask about buying them. All you really know is that an old lady exercised her right to enter into the same legally binding contract a 30 year old could have executed and her kid who wanted to cancel the contract says he didn't know she did it.
@@muskokamike127 Somethin' tells me the 91-year-old didn't 'decide' in this situation... Also, that '3 way' thing? Really? Sex is not a contract. Sexual consent can be revoked at any time. Not accepting the revocation of sexual consent is literally illegal. After all that false equivalency, you also completely fail to acknowledge elder abuse laws and elder consumer protections. In many places, it's illegal to trick an older person into signing contracts if they suffer from conditions like dementia. You wouldn't want a shady phone salesman to sign grandma up for ANOTHER phone every week because she forgot the previous week, would you?
I worked for a foundation repair service and I use to get so pissed when they use to take advantage of senior citizens by selling them things they clearly didn't need.
So why didn't you quit, tell the customer file with the State a formal complaint, contact your local news and do an interview etc etc. Oh you wanted YOUR MONEY, for doing YOUR PART in the scam. No different then the jersey who sold them the Contract.
I had the opposite experience at the foundation company I worked for. I was routinely pissed that our estimator was just rolling over on estimates. My favorite was a partial block wall replacement (4 feet wide, 8 fret deep) we were supposed to do from the outside ONLY without disturbing the shrubs or flowers outside. We were expected to never set foot in the basement for ANY REASON. I was the first person on site, and I called the boss to tell him I was already packing up to leave. Lol.
My dad did that with windows. He was cold due to health conditions and a window salesman sold him over priced windows. I paid for the few that were done at a cost and told them never to come back. I had the remaining windows replaced for 1/3 the cost. I threatened to contact the state because my dad was elderly and file a predatory practices claim.
About 15 years ago my husband and I had taken his dad to a doctor's appointment an hour from home. When we brought him home there was a brand new craftmatic adjustable bed there. Mother in law had ordered it from a flier unbeknownst to any of us. I called them immediately and told them to come get it ,as it supposedly had a 30 day trial. They refused after only being gone about 45 min. FIL told them to come get it as she had to sleep in a hospital bed with rails for her protection. They still refused and I told them they would not be paid for it. She passed a year later and they never did get paid or picked it up. Companies that prey on the elderly and not in control of mental facilities make me sick.
@@rayh592 The Werefrog remember working as an underwriting for Medicare Supplement policies. There were a few occasions wherein the applicant didn't want the policy. The applicant, upon speaking to The Werefrog over the phone stated the application was only signed because the agent wouldn't leave the house without the signed application. That is, the person came into the person's home to show possible insurance policies, and unless the elderly person (Medicare Supplement is pretty much only sold to people 65 years old or older) signed the application for insurance.
There's also considerable liability for damages to the roof when removing equipment. People with obsolete satellite dishes usually leave them attached to the roof because removing them would leave holes in the roof. In the case of multiple solar panels, the entire roof may end up like swiss cheese.
i have a dish on my roof not hooked up to anything. For me to take that down i would obviously have to carry a big dish off my roof, and then fill holes and put some shingles on. when i get my roof replaced eventually i will take it off then
I just pointed out the same, removing those panels is going to leave the homeowner having to replace the roof, preferably before the next rain. I don't think the company will be liable for that unless grandmas kids can prove elder abuse in signing a 95 year old woman up to a 25 year contract for higher priced electric than she can get from the grid.
@@volkswagenginetta you can just unhook it from the bracket that holds it to the roof and it's far less noticeable. I took the bracket off though and just filled with silicone.
@@mikeb5352 didnt even think about that. thanks. i still dont have a good place to go with it afterwards but if i need to get it off my roof thats good to know
I remember trying to get solar on my house in 2011. when I read the contract that was sent trough email everything seemed reasonable when they mailed me the contract to sign it was way much higher than the original. I told them to cancel the order since I haven't signed the contracts because of the bait and switch. Took me 6 months to get those jerks to stop harassing by threatening them with legal action.
A friend of mine had a water cooler in his home on rental contract. When he suddenly passed, I helped his daughter with the estate as best as I could. I called the water cooler rental company and requested they come pick up the appliance. They said they couldn't come for about 3 days. I told them by then the house may be emptied and all furniture, etc., put into storage. They picked it up an hour later.
A contract for what is a fixture on the home. A contract charging you for the energy it generates. A contract that raises the rate charged for the fixture doing its job. Oh yeah, that's a scam. Mega scam. The only human error is that someone read the contract and complained, according to the company at leadt.
Careful buying a new house! My step-dad got locked into this scam buying a brand new house that just came with that stupid contract. It's also full of "smart home" stuff that nobody knows how to use or even what freakin brand it is.
Given the information presented, it does seem likely that there was a scam involved. However, the *form* of the contract isn’t necessarily fraudulent. Think of it as a payment plan for the equipment. The installation is ‘free’, with the charge for the energy generated paying for the equipment and labor over time. It’s certainly *possible* for such a contract to be entirely above board. In fact, since the buyer of the house would be unlikely to qualify for the reduced electrical rate, it is entirely possible for that ‘scam’ contract, once assumed by the buyer, to become a genuinely good deal. Also, to be fair, we know the average ‘normally and ‘reduced’ rate. It’s possible that the quoted rate was lower than her *specific* rate at the time, and projected to remain that way.
@@Vessekx Steve's videos seem to attract a lot of viewers who aren't all that sharp. Maybe a salesman took advantage of her and maybe the company as a whole is shady, but it shouldn't take a whole lot of intelligence to figure out that the panels have to be paid for somehow. FTM, I don't think it's even requires that much intelligence to figure out the other stuff you mentioned, or to realize how few details we actually *know* for sure. I'd say the OP is closer to the dull end of the bell curve than most.
Not a scam. Electricity is cheaper than the market rate for most customers. You own the panels after the contract is through. It makes sense if you don't want to buy the panels outright
@@seanwatts8342 It’s really not. Just make sure you know what you’re getting. My solar panels are working out great. Vet the company before you sign the contract.
A 91 year old woman who is not tech savvy, a G-mail account for the email? Hmmm, this sends up a huge red flag for a possible fraudulently obtained contract. Something fishy was going on here and certainly would need a lawyer to look into this more as the company that signed her up may be liable for both the installation and the removal costs.
Mr. Lazarus is awesome. My dad died in 1997. At the time he had a mobile phone contract with PacTel. They refused to cancel his contract despite the fact that I sent them a certified death certificate. They demanded that my mom take over the contract. My mom didn't use mobile phones back then and didn't want it. It took us months to get them to stop sending threatening letters. They just didn't care that the contract holder had died. I suspect that is their normal response in order shake money out of estates or relatives.
@@Vessekx I said the expected lifespan, they can also be hit by a meteorite and die sooner. They are changing out one of the 20 year old solar arrays with a new one that went up on the spacex falcon 9 launch yesterday. I never said it would perfectly match every single panel and they are all equal. Or that you might want to change them early or might use them longer. But 20 years is given as the expected lifespan. I would actually point out, like most semiconductors they are damaged through use over time and so a 20 year old panel will not generate as much as a new one (it is afterall in direct sunlight and that is a lot of energy hitting it, and it isn't all able to be converted to electricity).
Something that jumped out at me, is that when Solar Panels are put on a roof there is high likelihood of Roof Damage - Water Leaking, and them 'Pulling' those panels off that Ladies Roof, they will not be Gentle, so who will pay for any Damages?
@@muskokamike127 Any idiot with a ladder and $25 to buy some caulk could probably do an adequate job. The solar company should do a good job but they might cut corners, and it will be the next owner that gets screwed if they don't get a good home inspection.
@@muskokamike127 I take it that you have never removed the mounting rails of of a PV system. I have, 32 panels worth. Each fastener that penetrates the shingles are sealed with sealant. Not a pretty sight. Just a little more then cosmetic damage.
I read the article and here is an interesting quote. "Sunrun subsequently told De Jong she could keep the solar panels on the house for free. Semanek acknowledged that any buyer of the house would then have to contract with Sunrun for solar service." It seems to me this issue still has not been resolved. The home is still locked into the contract, but it is placed on hold till the house is sold. Installing solar on a roof damages the roof. They panels and hardware hide that damage. If they had admitted fault and removed the panels. Would they have been liable to repair the damage to the roof?
This was a particularly interesting case to me. One issue that got little discussion was about the fact that the company that sold the contract was bought out by another company. There are only about 1000 unanswered questions there. I spent many years working for a company that was the largest consolidator of cemeteries and funeral homes in the world. While my position in the company would be too difficult to explain here, my primary responsibility was acquiring and then transitioning the new company into the larger company. One thing I learned quickly was that companies were run very differently even though they were in the same profession. Some were run extremely well and others pretty shady. It would take months to assimilate the best companies and some of the worst were darn near impossible without firing everyone and starting over and in those cases it could take a very long time. So maybe it took a while for the cancellation request to filter up to the right person in the parent company and for the request to be granted. If the original company was a little shady (and it sounds like that might be the case due to selling a 91 year old lady a 25 year contract) then the situation may have been hidden for a while. It also sounds a little goofy in as much as the customer had a contract to buy electricity in the first place. Most people I know who have solar bought the equipment to get free electricity (less the cost of equipment and maintenance). If they have a lot of cloudy days and cannot generate enough electricity, then they have the local utility company still connected as a backup. If they produce excess electricity, the utilities are required to buy it from the homeowner at some discounted rate. This sounds like maybe the company retained ownership of the solar panels and equipment and probably installed it for free with the idea of milking the customer over a long period to cover a relatively small initial investment and then let the profits roll in once the initial investment was covered. Just guessing, of course.
Taking advantage of the elderly is the most disgusting thing ever as far as I'm concerned. My grandfather was taken by foundation repair scammers on his house. Fortunately, in Tennessee, where he lived, there was an office in the attorney general's office that was set up just for helping the elderly, and we were able to get most of the money refunded.
This is why I purchased my solar system, rather than leasing, I don't have any contract (other than a materials and labor warranty) and the power company pays me for the excess electricity I generate, my average bill is $10 a month (the minimum connection charge) I'm almost caught up with the purchase price of the system from my savings. If I sell the house, the new owners won't have to worry about an electric bill either. Nice selling point! (Edited for spelling)
I truly didn't know that this WASN'T the only way to do this. Are there actually enough people out there who are ignorant enough to lease solar panels for this to be a thing? I thought you always just bought your panels, and they pay for themselves over the next decade. I guess we live in an age of people going out of their way to avoid thinking things through (just look at our last president and current president).
Exactly! Financially, leasing the system makes absolutely no sense-you'll end up paying far more for the electricity than you would if you bought the panels and amortized the cost out over however many years. But don't tell them you want to buy them outright until _after_ they've told you what size system you need. Otherwise, you might end up with a system far larger (and more expensive) than what they'd have given you if you leased the panels and bought the electricity from them.
Good for you. Here in NY, if you have New York State Energy & Gas, a/k/a NYSEG, they will not purchase your excess energy, but rather take it free of charge, and charge you more should you need more than you can create.
they didnt .. they expect the contract be transfereed to the new homeowner after sale/transfer ... which is why in my opinion ..they saw the obituary .. fabricated email/contract .. installed the equipment specifically to have the fabricated contract transformed into a valid contract at homesale
I was wondering if they didn't know her age and the actuarial tables. Based on that and a bogus contract, perhaps they would have ended up owning the house at some point.
@@TechGorilla1987 It doesn't seem to be an enforceable contract becsuse it was done in bad faith. Who owns the email address? The new company didn't want the scrutiny so they relented.
@@katmandu573 They just didn't want the bad press. The comments here make it obvious that most people don't realize how little they actually know about the deal, but that doesn't stop them from having unfounded opinions.
My mother died in 2013 and her cell phone was through ATT. My name was also on the account and I contacted them to shut off the service and send a final bill. I called five days in a row and received nothing but a runaround. I drove to one of their corporate stores only to be told they don't do that here and gave me the same number I had been calling. ATT kept her phone on without payments for 5 months. The strange thing is most of my friends with ATT, if they are one day late paying their bill their phone is shut off.
Yes ATT does that. I had clients whine about not paying a bill, but I bet they bought food and gas, and paid ATT!!! So now I take credit cards and they pay the processing fee too ;)
I had a young neighbor couple in my midtown apt complex. They were great tenants for several years. The day after the Super Bowl, in our city, her husband left our complex (on his way to work) and was killed by a hit and run driver, less than a block from our complex. The management company told his widow that his death wasn’t means for her getting out of their lease. REALLY???! This 27 yo widow had to stay in their apt for 2 additional months. It was bad enough that she still had to work while dealing with this loss. She was able get approval from the hospital to bring their dog to say goodbye to him before pulling life support. We are all replaceable to our employers and leaseholders. Ef them all.
The rate plan alone tells me this is a scam company. After 25 years, the rate would be doubled (38 cents) at 3% annual increase. In contrast, my solar panels work out to 6 cents per kWh over 25 years. Before you say this is a California thing, I actually live near Fresno too.
@@MrRhino12667 Possibly, but PG&E buys back surplus electricity at wholesale or 2.5 cents per kWh, which isn’t enough to make it worthwhile to overproduce. Still, it’s generally better to err on the side of overproduction than to pay for using more electricity than your panels made
Rule of 72. Divide 72 by the interest rate and that will be the approximate number of years to double your money or double your total monthly payments.
@@muskokamike127 There was a one week span between when she died and when the children visited that the house was vacant. Unlikely, but possible they swooped in, slapped on a bare minimum panel install and then forged the contract with that random, unknown email and faked the timestamps. Or she was simply not of competent mind when she agreed to the contract. Any way you slice it, senior citizens can get scammed easily, so it's best to keep on top of their affairs from every angle.
@@muskokamike127 Who said they were? The contract? If you are running a scam you would obviously date all the paperwork prior to the death. You would need a witness to have seen them go on after the death to prove otherwise.
@@muskokamike127 Anybody who would install solar panels and forge a contract in the hopes of scamming the estate of somebody whose name they found in an obituary would fit right in with some of the stellar intellects posting their thought here, wouldn't they?
@@muskokamike127 Rather easy for anyone with IT skills to forge email headers on a printout or forward. But what's not as widely understood is that most mailservers (like gmail, which more than 75% of the internet's email volume originates from or terminates at) will believe the headers when the message is delivered, as SMTP was designed to be tolerant of multi-week delays back in the 80s when sites would have to dial eachother via UUNET/UUCP and slowly transfer messages if they weren't on ARPAnet's ring. This quirk, along with how MTAs actually transfer mail from server to server, lets anyone with a functional understanding of the timestamp format forge messages from the past. Anyone who runs their own mailserver, or even a linux machine running postfix and a letsencrypt certificate, can inject forged messages, which will then get delivered to gmail, and gmail will display it as if it were delivered weeks/months/years before. I still routinely get email from Jan 1 1970 UTC from machines that have no onboard clock! (APC/Schneider power distribution strips are fully functional mailservers... As are most rack switches, routers, and enterprise-grade rack equipment. SMTP and SNMP still live today, as much of a security nightmare as they are...)
The panels were probably discounted from their normal price, (maybe even free?) and the power charge was to recoup the discount. If it's over 25 years, and she's 90, she's the one making the clever deal. They were never going to collect all 25 years worth of money from her to pay off the panels. So in the end, this looks like a case of a salesman that explained this to her with a wink and a nudge, to get a sale, and the company didn't realize they'd been swindled by their own salesman until after she died. Then they wanted to try to escape the loss by not cancelling the contract. (which probably cancelled itself, legally speaking, when she died - this of course will depend on the applicable state laws)
I've been reading David Lazarus since he started at the San Francisco Chronicle 20 years ago. He's a fantastic consumer affairs reporter. Finds great stories, deep dives in to the law and the companies. He's a bit of a legend amongst Bay Area natives
Mail carrier delivered the weekly sales flyers to an elderly woman I was visiting. One of the flyers was for a satellite TV company, with the introductory price in big numbers. She picked up the phone and dialed their number. Almost before I realized what was happening, she had pulled out her credit card and was starting to read them her number. I managed to stop her before she finished telling them the number. Whew! She already had cable TV, and she didn't read the fine print in the ad for the sat TV service, so she didn't know what she was doing. Yes, she was in the early stages of dementia. I was surprised by how fast she could have been signed up for something she didn't need. Scary.
Grandma was a month short of 82 when she went into hospice. The next week piles of QVC boxes started showing up. My aunt talked to QVC and they had fedex pick them all up and redirected the ones still in the system back to QVC. Apparently grandma's inhibitions around spending money were fading in the previous weeks. QVC actually gave full refunds on everything.
@@werefrogofassyria6609 maybe you were considerate enough to think about your loved ones who would get the money? Besides, I'm pretty sure when people know they're about to go that material things don't mean very much...
I had a similar situation with a lease vehicle from a Chrysler. My mom leashed the vehicle and died before the lease ran out. Chrysler refused to take the vehicle back and avoid the contract. They insisted that the rest of the lease be paid even though she was dead. So I kept the vehicle and made just enough payments to keep them from repoing it. In the meantime I drove putting as many miles as I wanted, which was way over the lease. And didn't do any repairs like fixing the oil pan or the brakes etc. And then simply returned it to the dealer one night after the lease had run out with the keys inside it. They couldn't touch me because I wasn't on the lease and the window for them to raise objections, and file whatever they need to to get paid had already closed.
It doesn't matter if they are wired in or not.. you sign the contract, you agree to pay up. Unless they refuse to come and finish the job and hook them up, but it sounds like this just happened before they had a chance to do that.
Wait, you're telling me people DON'T know their own electric rate? That's like not knowing how much your cable costs. My rate is 0.09/kWh for the first 200 and 0.12 after that. So you could imagine my shock at hearing this contract was for TWICE the electric rate for electricity generated on your own property.
This was pretty close to what happened when my mom died. We came to her house after her funeral to find a truck unloading solar panels. But after a brother in law showed up, a law school drop out who is now a realtor, we found nothing on the contract matched mom except the address. The name was similar, but not moms. Oh, and mom was in a coma the date it was signed. Mom's house number was 2306 a few days later, we saw the same guy installing the panels up the street, at house number 2603. Oops.
This is incredibly common. If you sell the house before the solar contract expires, you either have to get the next owner to agree to the contract being assigned to them, or you need to pay off the solar company. I find it interesting that the original company sold out to another company very shortly after the contract was signed. I wonder if the original company was paid something PER CUSTOMER, which gives them an incentive to randomly sign up 91 year olds who may have limited faculties to understand what they're being sold
Over twenty five years ago I saw a car being raffled off in a mall. When I read the entry form I found the small print on the back said that by signing the form, you were agreeing to have your long distance carrier changed to some oddball company. Since then I’ve always looked for the hook in a deal. Always read before signing anything.
@@FormerRuling I know. I called my provider at the time (AT&T) and had them put a notice in my records that my service was not to be changed without my written permission. What slammers would do is call a provider and tell them the customer had given them permission to make the change, which unfortunately was a legitimate common practise. The customer wouldn’t know about it until he got his next bill.
Yes that happened to me as a naive college kid back in the 90s. I filled out a contest entry form without reading the fine print. Thankfully it was easy to switch back to my normal phone carrier back then.
The best thing for anyone in a similar position, is to inform the company that there will never be a payment in the contract due to 5he person’s demise and that if by a certain deadline, the equipment is not removed, it will be considered as abandoned and disposed of as seen fit. I have advised a friend of mine who’s parents were well known celebrities, ( the mother passed a few years ago, and the father passed in 2020.) both of who’s deaths were widely reported by the media, to do this with regards to a cable TV contract, as when they tried to cancel this 9ld contract they were told that only the account holder could cancel. It was obvious that the person from the Cable Company, could not comprehend that this celebrity used a shortened version of his first name professionally. Instead they demand a death certificate and even if that is forwarded, they may not cancel the account. Insane!
This is something I hear a lot about. Someone passes away, and they go after any person they can get in touch with as if they just inherited the debt. I myself had to deal with this when my roomie died of diabetes almost 10 years ago. Had no legal ties to each other beyond splitting rent/utils, etc.
Interesting story - thanks for posting your take on it. From the details, it sounds like the only payment obligation was for cost of power generated. No charge for installation? Do the panels belong to solar company or homeowner? The lien issue is key - for a 25 year contract there must have been a procedure for settling early. Besides death, house could burn, foreclosure, etc. If there was an agreed installation fee, the estate might be obligated to pay that and maybe a removal fee to terminate contract early. One would assume the family's attorney was keeping the diminished capacity issue in a hip pocket, just in case.
Interesting that once again a company changes its tune once the press gets involved. What is it Mark Twain said? Something about never arguing with people who buy ink by the barrel.
The Streisand effect really got them on this one. I wonder how many customers will remember this article when given a sales pitch about solar power in the future.
I've drilled it into my boomer father's head. He's pretty adverse to making major changes anyway but he can have an occasional slip-up. Anyway, my ideal solution due to all of the BS w/ how they're going about selling solar is to use my own system. Like a solar generator (a battery and inverter) that also allows external use of one or more deep-cycle batteries. My ideal system means that I would have to manually plug the fridge into a different strip/outlet. I can work on that once I get the basics running, but I'm favoring any approach that avoids red-tape. Of course I'm not opposed to paying an electrician to wire an outlet or switch correctly, but I'm not going for a full Generac dual-input install either (nothing wrong with that tho).
@@TechBrewGamer The hope is that people are more careful with solar contracts in general. There are many company names and scams system. It is an innovative field. But by assuming that fraudstars are in the market, you can hope that people are aware of fraud in general.
Reminds me of the dead family member credit card story: * Family Member: "I am calling to tell you that she died in January." * Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply." * Family Member: "Maybe, you should turn it over to collections." * Bank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been." * Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?" * Bank: "Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!" * Family Member: "Do you think God will be mad at her?" * Bank: "Excuse me?" * Family Member: "Did you just get what I was telling you - the part about her being dead?" * Bank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor." Supervisor gets on the phone: * Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you, she died in January." * Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply." * Family Member: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?" * Bank: (Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?" * Family Member: "No, I'm her great nephew." (Lawyer info given) * Bank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?" * Family Member: "Sure." (fax number is given) After they get the fax: · Bank: "Our system just isn't set-up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help." · Family Member: "Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care." · Bank: "Well, the late fees and charges do still apply." · Family Member: "Would you like her new billing address?" · Bank: "That might help." · Family Member: "Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69." · Bank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!" · Family Member: "What do you do with dead people on your planet?
That doesn't make sense. The debt is supposed to be transferred to her estate (and the new address is the address of the executor of the will or the administrator of the estate.)
The key piece of information that either wasn't in the article or you/I missed is when were they installed. Could this be a case that the company rushes to houses were someone dies and puts solar panels on the house and then creates fake contracts?
This did come to mind because apparently she died a month after signing the contract. The timing while convenient for the contractor seems suspect to me along with the fact the panels were not even connected. I am thinking a lien scam.
@@joshuaguenin9507 Not saying it is true in this case but selling and reselling a company is a tactic to stay in front of trouble and liabilities. Follow the bouncing ball.
Yeah, because that *has* to be thing that really happens. Maybe she's dead because she was murdered by a prospective gang member who followed her home after she flashed her lights at him because he had his high beams on.
The "panels." There's no way those were real solar panels, the scam would have netted so much more money if they had hooked up real equipment to the house and the grid and then transferred the power bill into their name...then send her a fake power bill every month at the higher rate. With this scam, they had to install something on the roof that wasn't hooked up, and then charged her just barely a cent per kWH above what the power company charges...it makes no sense to me. These criminals really don't seem like the brightest bulbs on the tree if you excuse the pun : )
And there is the email thing with it as well, which is something that would also point towards it being a fraud situation. When you add the timing of it, the panels getting installed after her death could easily be a point towards a salesman getting sneaky about things right before the company purchase/merger
Predatory loans for solar were a huge problem in Arizona a few years ago. The state offered special financing programs. So solar companies sent out their own agents to act like third-party contractors and get people that couldn't afford it, people that didn't understand, and people who didn't have the mental capacity to consent to sign up for this solar program. The state even let people with no understanding of solar at all to be third-party sellers and misrepresent the prices. It really delayed the public's willingness to get solar. It was restructured and is doing better for everyone, but many people are still suffering the effects. Many people lost their homes to this state-backed scam. :/
When my wife died she had student loans. I never signed on/co-signed anything to do with her student loans. They started strong arm tactics to try to get me to pay her student loans. I told them she had died and they wanted me to provide them all the information about her death. I declined. I told them to find out the information the same way as I did. Every time a letter came in about her student loan I just wrote "Deceased. Return to sender". From my understanding it is highly illegal to write that on the envelope unless she was really dead. Took three or four times. They stopped trying to get me to pay for a loan I was no part of.
Student loan places are the worst. I had one call our house because a relative had our same last name (married) when they took loans out a decade earlier. They had defaulted and since gotten married and changed their last name. The woman was abusive and nasty to me on the phone. She assumed since i was female that I was the person on the loan. After we went round for a bit and I was very angry with her (I only answered the land line because they were calling and leaving messages every day), she finally decided that she believed me that it was a relative of ours who had changed their name and moved. Then she gets sweet as can be trying to get me to provide location name and phone number. I told her, if you hadn’t been harassing us for a loan that simply has the same last name and gotten abusive with me, then perhaps I would help you out. Not happening now.
Elderly people do require protection. Having a trusted person with power of attorney would be a cure to an issue like this with the trustee having the singular signing authority.
This contract seems strange, I've installed solar panels on 2 different homes and just paid for panels and labor, then worked deal with power company for the rate they pay on overages going back into the grid. This does save a lot on power bills but still takes about ten years to recoup. This sounds like they don't charge for installation, then become the homes power company on a 25 year contract, so unless this is the power company offering this, or a company working directly with them, then this is an impossible contract for a solar company to fulfill, because unless they also installed large battery storage, solar will not supply 100% power needs. Of course this contract was also sold to a person that would be 120 years old by the end of the agreement so maybe there's some holes in this strategy anyway.
Making a 25-year long contract with a 91 year-old is all kinds of scummy. And she was billed by kW/h generated, and not kW/h used? There is so much wrong with that contract if that was actually what was written on it.
So, we had a problem with panels as well. We live in Mass, anyhow our Grandfather passed away in 2010 and the solar panels were not fully paid off. We endured a lot of harrasment and even threats they would come to our home and rip them off. Our lawyer Let them know that nobody related to my Grandfather is responsible for what he signed, and that they could not take the solar panels off the house as It would leave holes / damage to the property. We ended up in court and the judge said the same thing. We won the case and got to keep the panels. I felt bad for them originally until all the threats started.
Ten years ago or so, I answered my door several times to meet a person asking to see my electric bill, to see if I could get a better rate. I was not about to do that. I asked to see theirs, or the company president's electric bill, or just a sample. These conversations frequently ended with me demanding that the person get off my porch. I even contacted the police a couple of times with a description. "Oh, they're at it again" was the usual reply.
My dad, with Alzheimers, answered the phone and we heard him keep saying "Yes." My mom asked him "who are you talking to?' Answer was "idunno." Mom picks up the phone, finds out it was a telemarketing rep and says, whatever my husband agreed to is not valid and cancel anything he agreed to. The telemarketer, at least, was classy enough to realize what just happened and apologized. No unexpected items ever appeared.
@@Duncan_Campbell If a process server can fake a signature and toss a summons in the storm drain for only a small amount of money, you just know someone will commit fraud for a lot more money.
Back in the 90s, my grandmother, rest her soul, thought it would be very generous to buy us a new Saturn before she killed herself. So let's say I've been familiar with how this goes since I was very young. I would also like to say the people at Saturn were very understanding and had the matter taken care very respectfully
Where I live, half my electric bill has nothing to do with the cost of the electricity itself. Half the bill consists of infrastructure charges, right of way fees, a litany of fixed taxes, fuel costs, and non-mandatory fees. Even if I used ZERO electricity, I'd have an electric bill.
That's legitimate, to a point. You are paying for the fact that power is available at the flick of a switch as well as the fact that there are people dealing with problems. Those don't go away because you don't use any power. Plus government grabs, of course.
Same here in Canada. There is a cost of electricity generation (rate that is often quoted when how much electricity costs is dicussed), but then cost of delivery - roughly similar to cost of generation, plus municipal fees and taxes and riders, so in total twice the 'cost of electricity'
This could have been solved in a five minute phone call. "Hello, are you the president of the company? Good! Your people installed your equipment on my dead mothers house under a false contract. You have 72 hours to remove your equipment or I will assume that it is abandoned. If you have a problem with this then you will see me on the 6:00 news!"
@@Foolish188 It is quite easy if they had power of attorney and guardianship over her. Even if not file Elder protection laws not sure what they are but they are usually some that will protect them from exploitation.
18.5c per kWh is a ridiculous ripoff rate for power, especially for self-generated solar. It seems a lot like they installed the panels without any actual interaction with the woman, possibly after her death, so they could try to scam new owners for this contract. My power is 13c per kWh with a 2c per kWh delivery fee and that's from a public power company.
When I was a Census taker in 2010, and a few times there were individuals of age, I can assume past retirement ready to give me their social security number right off the bat when I did not even ask for it specifically. Just being an authority, no matter how minuscule like a lowly census taker is enough for the elderly to be agreeable. This is also how lowlife salespeople prey on the elderly by making their sales pitch into an urgent matter, and they are there to help.
I remember an older Santa Barbara attorney that told me to remember in any deal don't commit an unconscionable act. You will lose. It will be hard to win a case if a little old 91yr lady creeps up to the tabe using a walker.
It's not as rare as you think. My mother-in-law who is 75 and has alzheimers was suckered into buying a $17k sun room for her house. She wrote a check, which bounced, because she is living in 1975 when she had money. It's taken us a year to get this handled.
A friend of ours whose mom had ordered Fingerhut, then the mom passed away the company kept hounding the child for the money. I told the child to say she moved; give the company the address of the cemetery and the plot number as the new address since they did not care that she was dead and still wanted to collect their money.
This is the first time ive heard of this business model.. most solar equipment providers finance the equipment not sell you the electricity produced. Under that theory I would say the contract would have been unenforceable anyway.. if they had financed the equipment then I would have bet they could have filed a workmans lien. odd part of this model is solar panels almost never supply enough energy to power the house so they are still purchasing energy from PG&E.
Been in that exact situation where we installed a furnace and owner died the next day. Because we’re an LLC it would cost more to pay a lawyer to file a lien than the profit off the job and had to eat because LLCs & lawyers.
If you can figure out how to file for the permit and/or notice of construction, you should be able to figure out the paperwork to convert that into a lien. Or really, you just have to look up when the probate hearing is and show up and hand the bill to the judge. Of course, if they were insolvent, then you're screwed.
I agree. 18.5 per kwh is double what we pay in Missouri. In the winter it drops to 6.5 kwh after the monthly period exceeds 1000 kwh. I'm on a heat pump and hybrid water heater. I count every kw... lol
we are talking about the utility company that has the highest rates in the U.S. PG&E is not telling the truth about the average rate payers average cost. 18.5 is the lifeline rate. around .29 is the next step, then to about .43 per kwh.
My Father-in-law owned a timeshare. When he passed, my wife (the executor) contacted the time share and to inform them he had passed. They demanded to know who was going to assume the contract and that if we did not transfer the contract to someone, they would assign it to the executor. It started to get ugly and it took a lawyer to end it.
"we are unable to move forward with the cancellation of this contract" is about as legalspeak as possible for "shit's fucked up here, let us get back to you" It is entirely plausible that the first company was a pushy-shell company to get all the contracts signed through deceit and it was always planned for the second company to receive the first. This is why I put my initials on all pages of a contract that I'm agreeing to in MY OWN PEN. If I see a copy of a contract that doesn't have my initials in my own pen on all pages it's felony charges time. Yes, twice.
@ Lehto’s law and community... Why was a 95 year old lady entering into a 25 year contract , if I heard you right? Too many things wrong with this scenario in my opinion. 🤔❤️🇺🇸
It is hard for many old people to say No and the scammers know this. Unfortunately without a clear law it could be hard to get them to stop. In Finland such targeted selling to people over 75 is banned.
@@okaro6595 good point. When I heard it was an elderly woman in her 90s and the terms of the contract many things came to mind. First of all, not to be negative but she most likely had diminished capacity when the unethical sales person sold her the product. I have been in sales and a good and ethical person does not have to stoop to such tactics. So not cool on the salesperson and the company. The lack of business ethics can and should slither away now (hopefully).🤔❤️🇺🇸
I always thought getting solar was meant to NOT pay for kwh anymore. And maybe even SELL energy back to the city. Why would you PAY for electricity if you have panels generating enough for your needs?
I took a PV (solar) panel class. The panels can take 5 - 15 years to break even (ROI). Why would a 91 year old person install panels when the chance of her seeing ROI in her lifetime is almost none. They took advantage of the elderly person.
The fact that she "signed" a contract for a email she never had. They need to lawyer up and bring this company to light.
That’s what I’m curious about. It would be extremely difficult to prove ownership of an email address that isn’t used regularly and publicly. I am not familiar with the electronic signature laws, but this seems like one area that would be extremely hard to prove in court in a case like this.
That could possibly be innocent -- a conversation that goes like "Okay, and we need an email to send you the contract." "Email? I don't think I have that." "Oh, okay, that's fine, I can help you get a free email account." It's still sleazy to sell to an elderly person who may not understand what they're signing, but the fact that it was a new unknown account isn't necessarily *proof* of malfeasance.
If it was my family member I would argue that at the woman’s age and given the contractual obligations it doesn’t make any sense.
Hence the woman was not mentally fit to have been bound to such an agreement. Therefore the contract is voided.
Why would a 90 year old person sign a 25 year old contract? I would like to see a solar company explain that to a judge.
@@Keenath She did have an email, though.
@Jonathan Brown Grandmothers are often confused about tech words. It's very normal for older folks to be confused about the difference betweeen, say, email, gmail, hotmail, and google.
Sounds to me like the entire contract was a scam to start with. Perhaps that aspect should be investigated first.
Solar panels are generally a scam. This is just an illustration of that.
@@sammhill8686 I used to think so but don't anymore. It just depends on where you live, how much sun they get and how much you pay for them. Sometimes they actually seem to make sense and if you're a "green hearted" person you might be fine with paying extra for the "privelage" of going greener. Yeaa well, don't get me started on the actual green..nes of the manufacturing of the actual panels though :D
@@tetryl1 True performance has a lot to do with it but the second a "company" gets involved they become a scam. I have yet to find a solar company that doesn't try to make 500% percent on the job or more through these convoluted deals.
@@tetryl1 The company is scamming and didn't want the bad press and dispositions from a legal case.
My first thought on seeing the title was Bible Scam (second thought was telecom services as this is all too common with phone and cable/satellite tv providers - "oh, no, you cannot cancel, only the contracted customer can... And, no, we won't pay attention to a death certificate...")
This reminds me when my grandma passed away at the nursing home. My dad got the final bill from them. He called director of nursing & asked if his mom passed about 3am, how did she take her 10am medication? And was charged big bucks for. Answer was sorry, we'll remove that charge. Wonder how many people never caught that.
Probably very few
Makes me wonder how many people were charged for medication they didn't receive while still with us.
Probably something as simple as how their billing system works. Everything your grandmother was going to receive that day she was billed for, even though she didn't make it to 11:59 PM. And then it takes a human to step in and go... nope.
Not that I am saying this is a reason because I have seen first hand death being an opportunity to run up charges - but medication is such a small amount.... It is possible that they were getting ready for the next day at the end of the previous day and they were putting the medications into the distribution and verifying to make sure the med allocations and types were correct before 3am, just that it was never consumed ... but they would already have a record of the distribution of such meds.
@Eric Matson Not true. hospitals and collection agencies CAN put a lien on your home for unpaid bills. Some states have certain limitations, but they can all take steps to collect payment.
My late husband died in 2013. In 2016 he had a warrant out for his arrest, for failure to appear in court. 😆😆 He would have loved it. He once got arrested (not charged) for vandalism in Missouri, and proving his innocence with his passport, he was in Austria at the time of the vandalism, was one of his favorite stories.
Did he have a very common name?
What "evidence" was the prosecutor relying on *if your husband wasn't even in the country at the time of the crime???* He didn't commit the crime, *so the prosecutor could not have had ANY evidence against him!!!*
I hope they didn't break in and vandalize your. Property trying to serve the warrant As cops are not great listeners or investagators
Mobile phone company in South Africa refused to accept that my Mother-in-Law had passed. We kept getting letters of demand. I eventually was able to get her billing/domicile address changed to the burial plot number in the cemetry, including the street address. I got the idea to do this after I had to meet with the Cemetary Manager and noticed a huge stack of un-opened post on his shelf and was told it was all addressed to "residents".
Lol good one!
A guy named Lazarus writing an article about death and liability in death ?
Can't make this up !
8:00 Death woman and a Mr. Lazarus... I see a pattern here. 🤓
Just like Lazarus came back from the dead so did this contract.
That was my thought.
Next up: a guy named Morpheus writes an article about online virtual environments.
We live in Klownworld
What it really warrants is a look into the company for fraud.
Sounds a little like modern day Boiler Room
I played "dumb" when a solar salesman came all the way down my road ( I have a farm ) I have had solar on properties for years. He flat out lied to me about benefits, installation costs including saying the contact could be exited at anytime (directly says in contract that it can't). I just nodded and nodded - the final push for a sig was major. The next day he returned climbing over my locked gate. He left when I called the sheriff (not 911). I made a complaint to the State. I suspect fraud is common in siding, used cars and solar.
@@danielweston9188 i suspect it is common in people coming door to door trying to sell something
Watch as the company gets 'acquired' by another solar company days before the investigation
Sounds fishy they would sign a 25 year contract to a 91 year old woman.
This "isolated case" - translated to "since we got caught doing shady business practices"
When my grandmother passed away in 2010 at 91, my aunt had to fight for months to get her satellite tv contract canceled. It was ridiculous. She finally sent a letter that said she was sorry but her dead mother would not be making any payments on the contract, along with another copy of the death certificate, to the highest level executive at the company. That's what it took to get the contract canceled and I swore that I would never do business with that company.
Tell us the company then!
Worked at dish, Not as long ago so policy was probable different (Honestly, your issue came from dish or direct) I didnt process canceling contracts of the deceased myself but I did make people aware of what they would need before I transferred them to the people that did that, the main requirement was you had to mail (I believe email was accepted later but not sure) a copy of the death cert.
Long story short: All they care about is your money, no matter how they get it, they'll comply with the law, but skirt around it
Let me guess.. Directv?
You should have given him your grandma's plot address at the cemetery and told them to send the bills there.
In Australia. Some years ago, my mother-in-law was coerced into signing up to a new telephone contract by a door-knocker. As she was suffering middle stage dementia, she had no real idea what she was signing. It only failed to go through because she had no drivers license to confirm her identity. My wife tore the company a new one as her was sure the door-knocker would have known from talking to her that she was not all there mentally.
usually the only piece that needs to be there is the money
We had a similar case with my godfather, he had had a significant stroke, could barely speak and was obviously impaired, we held financial & medical POA and one day found a new credit card in his mail.
We called the bank and told them to cancel it and remove him from their call lists etc and they refused to do so saying he had agreed over the phone etc.
We asked them to listen to the recording of the phone call and get back to us before we had time to report them to the consumer watchdog groups. They called back about an hour later with full apologies and said that they would "talk" to the person who signed him up for the card.
Best we can figure is was a foreign call centre who tried to take advantage of an old man.
@@MakeinSarawak did you report them to the consumer watch dog groups anyway?
@@klugevil not sure, my mother handled it but I suspect she would have.
Seriously sounds like a scam that almost happened to my parents when my grandmother passed away. A company installed something on my grandmother's home, and said she had signed an electronic contract, and provided a copy of the emailed contract supposedly sent from her email.
Long story short, the sleazebag looked at the obituaries, and did a public information search and found my "grandmother's" email. They then created a false contract and through the use of a digital sender, "emailed" a copy of the contract to themselves but filled in my grandmother's email address in the "From" field. Where it fell apart was my grandmother, god rest her soul, never knew she had an email address let alone ever touched a computer/cell phone. It was setup by my mother, who was the only one who had access, as her power of attorney to process certain matters.
The word "sleazebag" doesn't even scratch the surface on describing him. This may be harsh, but knowing that if he had ever got caught scamming in NIGERIA by their anti scam police, that he'd have been executed, I say send him there then bait him to get caught scamming. People who scam the elderly deserve to die
that's what I was thinking
One needs to be extremely careful about who you buy your solar panels from. There are some shadey companies out there.
There's a scam where cowboy companies do work that wasn't asked for and then claim it has increased the value of the property. I don't think that's a valid argument, because if you didn't ask for it, they were trespassing. That means they had criminal intent from the start.
This seems like the case here too given the discrepancies
Sounds like this warrants an investigation from the State Attorney's office.
Not just the SA, but also get consumer protection bureau(s) and utility commission snooping as well. Maybe they could work together to help gather evidence for the SA, while really turning the screws on the company in the meantime.
yeah, sounds like a scam...buying the electricity a solar panel makes?? thought solar panel electricity was free to person who had said solar panels
@@darrenw2803, those deals are set up as payment plans. You pay nothing up front for the panels, but pay for them by buying the electricity they produce over a period of time. It makes them affordable to people who can’t manage the entire cost of the panels and installation up front.
I agree
Conning the elderly is a felony.
i used to work for a pizza joint as a delivery driver. on one of my deliveries i got to the house and all the occupant were crying and did not know who bought and paid for the pizza i brought. it was at this point one them realized what had happened. her father had ordered and paid for pizza for the family and then immediately passed away. one of my most awkward deliveries.
I know I shouldn't... but... 😂🤣😂🤣
That's the weirdest porno plot I've ever heard of.
And you took so long bringing it he couldn't wait. I hope it was free.
Do you work for Domino’s?
I hope the family ate the pizza in honor of their great dad!
This is the reason I told my grandparents that if anyone came to their house for anything to tell the individual that they must talk to me first. This saved my grandparents from so many bad actors. I despise people who that advantage of the elderly.
Wouldn’t selling a 25 year contract to a 91 year old woman be enough to indicate shenanigans? My solar panels were connected to an 80 gallon hot water tank which dropped my electric bill so much that a person was out there checking my meter every day. Finally, I received a letter *demanding* to know why my electric bill was so low. LOL. If your energy is electric, heating and *keeping* water hot may well be the biggest drain on electricity in the house. It takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of water and it is constantly turning on to maintain the set temperature. Using solar panels to heat water more directly affects the cost of electricity rather than generating energy for the profit of others.
At the time we had panels installed, they were easy to get and pretty cheap. Then the electric companies did two things: they changed their names to *energy* companies and, across the country, they bought up the solar panel businesses which were small, independent businesses simply to close them down. 15 years later it was impossible to find the replacement part to fix a panel. When I sold the house even later, the real estate agent said I should junk them because they decreased the value of the house. Im glad to see solar panels are coming back but I’m sorry to see they are sold the pressure tactics of vacuum salesmen instead
of the inventive, enthusiastic young people who installed mine.
"Wouldn’t selling a 25 year contract to a 91 year old woman be enough to indicate shenanigans?" In this case, certainly. However, if we want to play the "theoretical" game I can see a situation where it might not be:
Let's say that the lady had her last child when she was about 40, and they didn't have a home or apartment because they were travelling all the time. (This sounds like me-I was on the road between two and three weeks every month, and I was technically living at home. It made no sense to rent an apartment I only saw about 10 days a month. It made more sense to pay mom almost that much in rent money, in addition to assuming some of the bills). In her will, I was to get the house when she died, so let's say the lady had the same arrangement.
If she and her child (we'll call them "Norbert") sat down and talked about it and he agreed, then I could see it not being shenanigans, but that's also the case where everybody understands what's going on.
Jeez that does suck.
Lmao you should've given them a crazy answer like: "Well, I'm a contract killer and business has been bad lately. I usually use 4 deep freezers but I'm currently only using 1. Oh not to mention I don't have to double wash my clothes anymore. I appreciate your concern though, feel free to stop by anytime."
Yeah I know I sound nuts but I love messing with people lol.
ADT Home Security wouldn't let my mother out of their contract when she died. I settled her last bill up to the day she died, then sold her home. But ADT wasn't happy with that and kept sending me bills and threats for over a year before they finally gave up.
I had them install a security system with iirc a two year service contract. A couple months later I got an unsolicited offer that I couldn't refuse. I would have been on the hook for the service if the new homeowner didn't sign up with them.
Took me 5 months to get rid of ADT after my mom died. They are so dirty.
@@geetee2694 wow. Was that explained up front? Or a Fine Print thing?
@@birdlady2725 I don't really remember, this was around 2000. The system was paid upfront, the contract was for the monthly service. I remember being surprised that they would let him use the equipment if he signed with him, because that had not been my experience (they were somewhat older units though).
Give them her new address to send the bill to.
My blood pressure jumps a few points whenever someone claims to be unable to do something when it is painfully obvious that there are perfectly able, just unwilling.
@ Muskoka Mike lighten up Francis
Yeah, I dealt with "obvious hypocrisy and lies" stuff like that as a child. Grownups would severely criticize and ridicule ME for saying I felt too scared or tired to do something, yet THEY would then decline to help ME with something, using these very same "I don't feel like it" excuses!
@@muskokamike127 Dude, the contract was shady AF.
@@chrisbaker8533 You don't have a clue about that, and I suspect it's because you don't have a clue how much you don't know and how many assumptions you're making. You don't know what she was actually paying to the utility, so you don't know if it was actually costing her more. You don't know if she was willing to pay a little more to use renewable energy. You don't know if it was a rent to own plan that would mean she owned the panels and got free electricity when the contract was up. You don't know if somebody knocked on her door to sell her solar panels or if she called to ask about buying them. All you really know is that an old lady exercised her right to enter into the same legally binding contract a 30 year old could have executed and her kid who wanted to cancel the contract says he didn't know she did it.
@@muskokamike127 Somethin' tells me the 91-year-old didn't 'decide' in this situation...
Also, that '3 way' thing? Really? Sex is not a contract. Sexual consent can be revoked at any time. Not accepting the revocation of sexual consent is literally illegal.
After all that false equivalency, you also completely fail to acknowledge elder abuse laws and elder consumer protections. In many places, it's illegal to trick an older person into signing contracts if they suffer from conditions like dementia. You wouldn't want a shady phone salesman to sign grandma up for ANOTHER phone every week because she forgot the previous week, would you?
I worked for a foundation repair service and I use to get so pissed when they use to take advantage of senior citizens by selling them things they clearly didn't need.
It’s all too common unfortunately.
but you were fine with taking advantage of young people?
So why didn't you quit, tell the customer file with the State a formal complaint, contact your local news and do an interview etc etc. Oh you wanted YOUR MONEY, for doing YOUR PART in the scam. No different then the jersey who sold them the Contract.
@@bobm3434 Must be nice to Monday morning quarterback someone else's livelihood.
I had the opposite experience at the foundation company I worked for. I was routinely pissed that our estimator was just rolling over on estimates. My favorite was a partial block wall replacement (4 feet wide, 8 fret deep) we were supposed to do from the outside ONLY without disturbing the shrubs or flowers outside. We were expected to never set foot in the basement for ANY REASON.
I was the first person on site, and I called the boss to tell him I was already packing up to leave. Lol.
My dad did that with windows. He was cold due to health conditions and a window salesman sold him over priced windows. I paid for the few that were done at a cost and told them never to come back. I had the remaining windows replaced for 1/3 the cost. I threatened to contact the state because my dad was elderly and file a predatory practices claim.
About 15 years ago my husband and I had taken his dad to a doctor's appointment an hour from home. When we brought him home there was a brand new craftmatic adjustable bed there. Mother in law had ordered it from a flier unbeknownst to any of us. I called them immediately and told them to come get it ,as it supposedly had a 30 day trial. They refused after only being gone about 45 min. FIL told them to come get it as she had to sleep in a hospital bed with rails for her protection. They still refused and I told them they would not be paid for it. She passed a year later and they never did get paid or picked it up. Companies that prey on the elderly and not in control of mental facilities make me sick.
This was a scam from the start. I feel a great loathing towards such vultures.
Solar is the new used car business
If nothing else, Ya gotta love the optimism of signing a 25 yr. contract at 90 years old!
No optimism, completely fraudulent and exploitative.
Likely pressured by the company to sign the contract. The company should be charged with illegal business practices and put out of business.
@@rayh592 The Werefrog remember working as an underwriting for Medicare Supplement policies. There were a few occasions wherein the applicant didn't want the policy. The applicant, upon speaking to The Werefrog over the phone stated the application was only signed because the agent wouldn't leave the house without the signed application. That is, the person came into the person's home to show possible insurance policies, and unless the elderly person (Medicare Supplement is pretty much only sold to people 65 years old or older) signed the application for insurance.
"Mom" did NOT have a clue as to what she was doing/signing.
The parasite of a salesman laughed all the way to the bank to collect his commission....
You really don't
There's also considerable liability for damages to the roof when removing equipment. People with obsolete satellite dishes usually leave them attached to the roof because removing them would leave holes in the roof. In the case of multiple solar panels, the entire roof may end up like swiss cheese.
so sorry baby, the swiss cheeze is because of global warming
i have a dish on my roof not hooked up to anything. For me to take that down i would obviously have to carry a big dish off my roof, and then fill holes and put some shingles on. when i get my roof replaced eventually i will take it off then
I just pointed out the same, removing those panels is going to leave the homeowner having to replace the roof, preferably before the next rain. I don't think the company will be liable for that unless grandmas kids can prove elder abuse in signing a 95 year old woman up to a 25 year contract for higher priced electric than she can get from the grid.
@@volkswagenginetta you can just unhook it from the bracket that holds it to the roof and it's far less noticeable. I took the bracket off though and just filled with silicone.
@@mikeb5352 didnt even think about that. thanks. i still dont have a good place to go with it afterwards but if i need to get it off my roof thats good to know
I remember trying to get solar on my house in 2011. when I read the contract that was sent trough email everything seemed reasonable when they mailed me the contract to sign it was way much higher than the original. I told them to cancel the order since I haven't signed the contracts because of the bait and switch. Took me 6 months to get those jerks to stop harassing by threatening them with legal action.
A friend of mine had a water cooler in his home on rental contract. When he suddenly passed, I helped his daughter with the estate as best as I could. I called the water cooler rental company and requested they come pick up the appliance. They said they couldn't come for about 3 days. I told them by then the house may be emptied and all furniture, etc., put into storage. They picked it up an hour later.
A contract for what is a fixture on the home.
A contract charging you for the energy it generates.
A contract that raises the rate charged for the fixture doing its job.
Oh yeah, that's a scam. Mega scam. The only human error is that someone read the contract and complained, according to the company at leadt.
Careful buying a new house! My step-dad got locked into this scam buying a brand new house that just came with that stupid contract.
It's also full of "smart home" stuff that nobody knows how to use or even what freakin brand it is.
Given the information presented, it does seem likely that there was a scam involved. However, the *form* of the contract isn’t necessarily fraudulent. Think of it as a payment plan for the equipment. The installation is ‘free’, with the charge for the energy generated paying for the equipment and labor over time. It’s certainly *possible* for such a contract to be entirely above board.
In fact, since the buyer of the house would be unlikely to qualify for the reduced electrical rate, it is entirely possible for that ‘scam’ contract, once assumed by the buyer, to become a genuinely good deal.
Also, to be fair, we know the average ‘normally and ‘reduced’ rate. It’s possible that the quoted rate was lower than her *specific* rate at the time, and projected to remain that way.
@@Vessekx Steve's videos seem to attract a lot of viewers who aren't all that sharp. Maybe a salesman took advantage of her and maybe the company as a whole is shady, but it shouldn't take a whole lot of intelligence to figure out that the panels have to be paid for somehow. FTM, I don't think it's even requires that much intelligence to figure out the other stuff you mentioned, or to realize how few details we actually *know* for sure. I'd say the OP is closer to the dull end of the bell curve than most.
For panels that were NOT even hooked up aka tied into the grid!
Not a scam. Electricity is cheaper than the market rate for most customers. You own the panels after the contract is through. It makes sense if you don't want to buy the panels outright
sounds like they found out she died and they quickly installed some panels before anyone noticed
Solar power equipment scammers seem to be more prevalent than I realized.
They are everywhere.
Solar power _ITSELF_ is a scam.
@@seanwatts8342 prove it.
Yep just had one call today.
@@seanwatts8342 It’s really not. Just make sure you know what you’re getting. My solar panels are working out great. Vet the company before you sign the contract.
A 91 year old woman who is not tech savvy, a G-mail account for the email? Hmmm, this sends up a huge red flag for a possible fraudulently obtained contract. Something fishy was going on here and certainly would need a lawyer to look into this more as the company that signed her up may be liable for both the installation and the removal costs.
Sounds like someone got caught in their scam and said let’s get out before we go to jail.
Lol how do you put a corporation in jail?
@@TheFloridaStig By putting the executives in jail, or at least the CEO.
Mr. Lazarus is awesome.
My dad died in 1997. At the time he had a mobile phone contract with PacTel. They refused to cancel his contract despite the fact that I sent them a certified death certificate. They demanded that my mom take over the contract. My mom didn't use mobile phones back then and didn't want it.
It took us months to get them to stop sending threatening letters. They just didn't care that the contract holder had died.
I suspect that is their normal response in order shake money out of estates or relatives.
They were hoping to put a lien on the house for the value of a 25 year contract and get the heirs to pay it when they sold the house.
Interesting idea.
Yup pretty much
25 years is questionable too... The lifespan of solar panels is usually 20.
@@EwanMarshall, no, that’s the *warranty* period on most modern solar panels. Things don’t just stop working because the warranty expires.
@@Vessekx I said the expected lifespan, they can also be hit by a meteorite and die sooner. They are changing out one of the 20 year old solar arrays with a new one that went up on the spacex falcon 9 launch yesterday.
I never said it would perfectly match every single panel and they are all equal. Or that you might want to change them early or might use them longer. But 20 years is given as the expected lifespan.
I would actually point out, like most semiconductors they are damaged through use over time and so a 20 year old panel will not generate as much as a new one (it is afterall in direct sunlight and that is a lot of energy hitting it, and it isn't all able to be converted to electricity).
Something that jumped out at me, is that when Solar Panels are put on a roof there is high likelihood of Roof Damage - Water Leaking, and them 'Pulling' those panels off that Ladies Roof, they will not be Gentle, so who will pay for any Damages?
*Lady's
I have solar panels on my roof, I own these, no contract. You are correct, when they are removed damage is caused to the roof.
@@muskokamike127 Any idiot with a ladder and $25 to buy some caulk could probably do an adequate job. The solar company should do a good job but they might cut corners, and it will be the next owner that gets screwed if they don't get a good home inspection.
@@muskokamike127 how did you get I implied that the entire roof needed to be replace? I said the roof would be damaged and it will be.
@@muskokamike127 I take it that you have never removed the mounting rails of of a PV system. I have, 32 panels worth. Each fastener that penetrates the shingles are sealed with sealant. Not a pretty sight. Just a little more then cosmetic damage.
I read the article and here is an interesting quote. "Sunrun subsequently told De Jong she could keep the solar panels on the house for free. Semanek acknowledged that any buyer of the house would then have to contract with Sunrun for solar service." It seems to me this issue still has not been resolved. The home is still locked into the contract, but it is placed on hold till the house is sold.
Installing solar on a roof damages the roof. They panels and hardware hide that damage. If they had admitted fault and removed the panels. Would they have been liable to repair the damage to the roof?
This was a particularly interesting case to me. One issue that got little discussion was about the fact that the company that sold the contract was bought out by another company. There are only about 1000 unanswered questions there. I spent many years working for a company that was the largest consolidator of cemeteries and funeral homes in the world. While my position in the company would be too difficult to explain here, my primary responsibility was acquiring and then transitioning the new company into the larger company. One thing I learned quickly was that companies were run very differently even though they were in the same profession. Some were run extremely well and others pretty shady. It would take months to assimilate the best companies and some of the worst were darn near impossible without firing everyone and starting over and in those cases it could take a very long time. So maybe it took a while for the cancellation request to filter up to the right person in the parent company and for the request to be granted. If the original company was a little shady (and it sounds like that might be the case due to selling a 91 year old lady a 25 year contract) then the situation may have been hidden for a while.
It also sounds a little goofy in as much as the customer had a contract to buy electricity in the first place. Most people I know who have solar bought the equipment to get free electricity (less the cost of equipment and maintenance). If they have a lot of cloudy days and cannot generate enough electricity, then they have the local utility company still connected as a backup. If they produce excess electricity, the utilities are required to buy it from the homeowner at some discounted rate. This sounds like maybe the company retained ownership of the solar panels and equipment and probably installed it for free with the idea of milking the customer over a long period to cover a relatively small initial investment and then let the profits roll in once the initial investment was covered. Just guessing, of course.
Taking advantage of the elderly is the most disgusting thing ever as far as I'm concerned. My grandfather was taken by foundation repair scammers on his house. Fortunately, in Tennessee, where he lived, there was an office in the attorney general's office that was set up just for helping the elderly, and we were able to get most of the money refunded.
This is why I purchased my solar system, rather than leasing, I don't have any contract (other than a materials and labor warranty) and the power company pays me for the excess electricity I generate, my average bill is $10 a month (the minimum connection charge) I'm almost caught up with the purchase price of the system from my savings. If I sell the house, the new owners won't have to worry about an electric bill either. Nice selling point!
(Edited for spelling)
I truly didn't know that this WASN'T the only way to do this. Are there actually enough people out there who are ignorant enough to lease solar panels for this to be a thing? I thought you always just bought your panels, and they pay for themselves over the next decade. I guess we live in an age of people going out of their way to avoid thinking things through (just look at our last president and current president).
Exactly! Financially, leasing the system makes absolutely no sense-you'll end up paying far more for the electricity than you would if you bought the panels and amortized the cost out over however many years.
But don't tell them you want to buy them outright until _after_ they've told you what size system you need. Otherwise, you might end up with a system far larger (and more expensive) than what they'd have given you if you leased the panels and bought the electricity from them.
Good for you. Here in NY, if you have New York State Energy & Gas, a/k/a NYSEG, they will not purchase your excess energy, but rather take it free of charge, and charge you more should you need more than you can create.
Think here the most they have to pay for your excess from solar or even a windmill is only 1 cent per kilowatt hour.
At 90 years old, how would anyone expect the lady to fulfill the contract?
they didnt .. they expect the contract be transfereed to the new homeowner after sale/transfer ...
which is why in my opinion ..they saw the obituary .. fabricated email/contract .. installed the equipment specifically to have the fabricated contract transformed into a valid contract at homesale
I was wondering if they didn't know her age and the actuarial tables. Based on that and a bogus contract, perhaps they would have ended up owning the house at some point.
@@TechGorilla1987 It doesn't seem to be an enforceable contract becsuse it was done in bad faith. Who owns the email address? The new company didn't want the scrutiny so they relented.
@@katmandu573 They just didn't want the bad press. The comments here make it obvious that most people don't realize how little they actually know about the deal, but that doesn't stop them from having unfounded opinions.
The same way a 30 year mortgage gets satisfied even if the home buyer moves in less than 30 years.
My mother died in 2013 and her cell phone was through ATT. My name was also on the account and I contacted them to shut off the service and send a final bill. I called five days in a row and received nothing but a runaround. I drove to one of their corporate stores only to be told they don't do that here and gave me the same number I had been calling.
ATT kept her phone on without payments for 5 months.
The strange thing is most of my friends with ATT, if they are one day late paying their bill their phone is shut off.
Yes ATT does that. I had clients whine about not paying a bill, but I bet they bought food and gas, and paid ATT!!! So now I take credit cards and they pay the processing fee too ;)
Heck ATT shut mine off a week before the bill they sent me was even due, just so they could charge a reactivation fee.
I had a young neighbor couple in my midtown apt complex. They were great tenants for several years. The day after the Super Bowl, in our city, her husband left our complex (on his way to work) and was killed by a hit and run driver, less than a block from our complex.
The management company told his widow that his death wasn’t means for her getting out of their lease.
REALLY???!
This 27 yo widow had to stay in their apt for 2 additional months. It was bad enough that she still had to work while dealing with this loss.
She was able get approval from the hospital to bring their dog to say goodbye to him before pulling life support.
We are all replaceable to our employers and leaseholders.
Ef them all.
The rate plan alone tells me this is a scam company. After 25 years, the rate would be doubled (38 cents) at 3% annual increase.
In contrast, my solar panels work out to 6 cents per kWh over 25 years.
Before you say this is a California thing, I actually live near Fresno too.
But what about what the panel generates versus what is used? I would assume she would generate some power back to the grid and be paid for that.
@@MrRhino12667 Possibly, but PG&E buys back surplus electricity at wholesale or 2.5 cents per kWh, which isn’t enough to make it worthwhile to overproduce. Still, it’s generally better to err on the side of overproduction than to pay for using more electricity than your panels made
Rule of 72. Divide 72 by the interest rate and that will be the approximate number of years to double your money or double your total monthly payments.
@@danburch9989 I did 1.03^25 on my phone's calculator.
It isn’t that bad if you take inflation into account, but it it still isn’t great
It is my understanding that watching obits and faking signed contracts or purchases is a very common SCAM.
@@muskokamike127 There was a one week span between when she died and when the children visited that the house was vacant. Unlikely, but possible they swooped in, slapped on a bare minimum panel install and then forged the contract with that random, unknown email and faked the timestamps.
Or she was simply not of competent mind when she agreed to the contract.
Any way you slice it, senior citizens can get scammed easily, so it's best to keep on top of their affairs from every angle.
@@PhantasmXYZ problem is, some don't have anyone to help them.... It is a bad situation all around.
@@muskokamike127 Who said they were? The contract? If you are running a scam you would obviously date all the paperwork prior to the death. You would need a witness to have seen them go on after the death to prove otherwise.
@@muskokamike127 Anybody who would install solar panels and forge a contract in the hopes of scamming the estate of somebody whose name they found in an obituary would fit right in with some of the stellar intellects posting their thought here, wouldn't they?
@@muskokamike127 Rather easy for anyone with IT skills to forge email headers on a printout or forward. But what's not as widely understood is that most mailservers (like gmail, which more than 75% of the internet's email volume originates from or terminates at) will believe the headers when the message is delivered, as SMTP was designed to be tolerant of multi-week delays back in the 80s when sites would have to dial eachother via UUNET/UUCP and slowly transfer messages if they weren't on ARPAnet's ring. This quirk, along with how MTAs actually transfer mail from server to server, lets anyone with a functional understanding of the timestamp format forge messages from the past.
Anyone who runs their own mailserver, or even a linux machine running postfix and a letsencrypt certificate, can inject forged messages, which will then get delivered to gmail, and gmail will display it as if it were delivered weeks/months/years before.
I still routinely get email from Jan 1 1970 UTC from machines that have no onboard clock! (APC/Schneider power distribution strips are fully functional mailservers... As are most rack switches, routers, and enterprise-grade rack equipment. SMTP and SNMP still live today, as much of a security nightmare as they are...)
They need to follow up on the email that set up they account. Something is shady considering the woman's age 🤔
It doesn't make sense to have a contract with a 90 year old woman who they knows not going to be around for 25 more years
I must not be a typical old person as I don't fall for those kind of things
The panels were probably discounted from their normal price, (maybe even free?) and the power charge was to recoup the discount. If it's over 25 years, and she's 90, she's the one making the clever deal. They were never going to collect all 25 years worth of money from her to pay off the panels. So in the end, this looks like a case of a salesman that explained this to her with a wink and a nudge, to get a sale, and the company didn't realize they'd been swindled by their own salesman until after she died. Then they wanted to try to escape the loss by not cancelling the contract. (which probably cancelled itself, legally speaking, when she died - this of course will depend on the applicable state laws)
Email account set up by the sales rep probably?
I've been reading David Lazarus since he started at the San Francisco Chronicle 20 years ago. He's a fantastic consumer affairs reporter. Finds great stories, deep dives in to the law and the companies. He's a bit of a legend amongst Bay Area natives
Mail carrier delivered the weekly sales flyers to an elderly woman I was visiting. One of the flyers was for a satellite TV company, with the introductory price in big numbers. She picked up the phone and dialed their number. Almost before I realized what was happening, she had pulled out her credit card and was starting to read them her number. I managed to stop her before she finished telling them the number. Whew! She already had cable TV, and she didn't read the fine print in the ad for the sat TV service, so she didn't know what she was doing. Yes, she was in the early stages of dementia. I was surprised by how fast she could have been signed up for something she didn't need. Scary.
Grandma was a month short of 82 when she went into hospice.
The next week piles of QVC boxes started showing up.
My aunt talked to QVC and they had fedex pick them all up and redirected the ones still in the system back to QVC.
Apparently grandma's inhibitions around spending money were fading in the previous weeks.
QVC actually gave full refunds on everything.
If you know you're about to go, why not buy everything you ever wanted? It's not like you can take your money with you.
@@werefrogofassyria6609 maybe you were considerate enough to think about your loved ones who would get the money? Besides, I'm pretty sure when people know they're about to go that material things don't mean very much...
I had a similar situation with a lease vehicle from a Chrysler. My mom leashed the vehicle and died before the lease ran out. Chrysler refused to take the vehicle back and avoid the contract. They insisted that the rest of the lease be paid even though she was dead. So I kept the vehicle and made just enough payments to keep them from repoing it. In the meantime I drove putting as many miles as I wanted, which was way over the lease. And didn't do any repairs like fixing the oil pan or the brakes etc. And then simply returned it to the dealer one night after the lease had run out with the keys inside it. They couldn't touch me because I wasn't on the lease and the window for them to raise objections, and file whatever they need to to get paid had already closed.
Since the solar panels weren’t wired in they would owe nothing under the contract.
@@muskokamike127 but they were offered back. Soooo...
Once those panels have been unboxed and mounted they are probably considered “Used” if they are removed, even if they were never wired up.
Unfinished job could be breach of contract. Who going to pay for removal and roof repair?
Unwired solar panels that don't produce electricity is considered a completed job in Minnesota. :)
It doesn't matter if they are wired in or not.. you sign the contract, you agree to pay up. Unless they refuse to come and finish the job and hook them up, but it sounds like this just happened before they had a chance to do that.
How exactly do they intend to sue a dead person for "breach of contract"?
They go after the estate, as Steve explained.
Wait, you're telling me people DON'T know their own electric rate? That's like not knowing how much your cable costs. My rate is 0.09/kWh for the first 200 and 0.12 after that. So you could imagine my shock at hearing this contract was for TWICE the electric rate for electricity generated on your own property.
A guy named "Lazarus" brought forth an issue of a contract surviving the grave? That's the thing about irony!
The main thing about irony is it’s hardly ever used correctly. This is coincidence. Still funny.
"Coincidence" is just two or more things happening at the same time, I admit though, that this coincidence is just weakly ironic. @@silverXnoise
This was pretty close to what happened when my mom died. We came to her house after her funeral to find a truck unloading solar panels. But after a brother in law showed up, a law school drop out who is now a realtor, we found nothing on the contract matched mom except the address. The name was similar, but not moms. Oh, and mom was in a coma the date it was signed. Mom's house number was 2306 a few days later, we saw the same guy installing the panels up the street, at house number 2603. Oops.
This is incredibly common. If you sell the house before the solar contract expires, you either have to get the next owner to agree to the contract being assigned to them, or you need to pay off the solar company.
I find it interesting that the original company sold out to another company very shortly after the contract was signed. I wonder if the original company was paid something PER CUSTOMER, which gives them an incentive to randomly sign up 91 year olds who may have limited faculties to understand what they're being sold
Thanks Steve for your advice / expertise which is always appreciated.
Always add "till death do us part" at the end of every contract.
I'd be investigating the company if their predators of obituaries
@@muskokamike127 not installed, the contract was "made" a month "before"
@@muskokamike127 installed a month after.. the contract was dated a month before... doesn't mean it actually was created then.
Over twenty five years ago I saw a car being raffled off in a mall. When I read the entry form I found the small print on the back said that by signing the form, you were agreeing to have your long distance carrier changed to some oddball company. Since then I’ve always looked for the hook in a deal.
Always read before signing anything.
This was so prevalent it had an industry term - slamming.
@@FormerRuling
I know. I called my provider at the time (AT&T) and had them put a notice in my records that my service was not to be changed without my written permission. What slammers would do is call a provider and tell them the customer had given them permission to make the change, which unfortunately was a legitimate common practise. The customer wouldn’t know about it until he got his next bill.
Yes that happened to me as a naive college kid back in the 90s. I filled out a contest entry form without reading the fine print. Thankfully it was easy to switch back to my normal phone carrier back then.
The best thing for anyone in a similar position, is to inform the company that there will never be a payment in the contract due to 5he person’s demise and that if by a certain deadline, the equipment is not removed, it will be considered as abandoned and disposed of as seen fit.
I have advised a friend of mine who’s parents were well known celebrities, ( the mother passed a few years ago, and the father passed in 2020.) both of who’s deaths were widely reported by the media, to do this with regards to a cable TV contract, as when they tried to cancel this 9ld contract they were told that only the account holder could cancel. It was obvious that the person from the Cable Company, could not comprehend that this celebrity used a shortened version of his first name professionally. Instead they demand a death certificate and even if that is forwarded, they may not cancel the account. Insane!
This is something I hear a lot about. Someone passes away, and they go after any person they can get in touch with as if they just inherited the debt. I myself had to deal with this when my roomie died of diabetes almost 10 years ago. Had no legal ties to each other beyond splitting rent/utils, etc.
Interesting story - thanks for posting your take on it. From the details, it sounds like the only payment obligation was for cost of power generated. No charge for installation? Do the panels belong to solar company or homeowner? The lien issue is key - for a 25 year contract there must have been a procedure for settling early. Besides death, house could burn, foreclosure, etc. If there was an agreed installation fee, the estate might be obligated to pay that and maybe a removal fee to terminate contract early. One would assume the family's attorney was keeping the diminished capacity issue in a hip pocket, just in case.
Interesting that once again a company changes its tune once the press gets involved. What is it Mark Twain said? Something about never arguing with people who buy ink by the barrel.
The Streisand effect really got them on this one. I wonder how many customers will remember this article when given a sales pitch about solar power in the future.
I've drilled it into my boomer father's head. He's pretty adverse to making major changes anyway but he can have an occasional slip-up. Anyway, my ideal solution due to all of the BS w/ how they're going about selling solar is to use my own system. Like a solar generator (a battery and inverter) that also allows external use of one or more deep-cycle batteries.
My ideal system means that I would have to manually plug the fridge into a different strip/outlet. I can work on that once I get the basics running, but I'm favoring any approach that avoids red-tape. Of course I'm not opposed to paying an electrician to wire an outlet or switch correctly, but I'm not going for a full Generac dual-input install either (nothing wrong with that tho).
not many as it is super easy to change the name of the business.
@@TechBrewGamer The hope is that people are more careful with solar contracts in general. There are many company names and scams system. It is an innovative field. But by assuming that fraudstars are in the market, you can hope that people are aware of fraud in general.
i bought my own and no mortgage too because i like actually owning my stuff
Got to look at suing the solar company for exploitation/fraud now.
they have lawyers on tap. you'll spend a fortune as they drag it out for years and get nothing
@@TheFloridaStig I doubt that. This sounds like some small company and I can't see there being much to drag on about.
Reminds me of the dead family member credit card story:
* Family Member: "I am calling to tell you that she died in January."
* Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
* Family Member: "Maybe, you should turn it over to collections."
* Bank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been."
* Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?"
* Bank: "Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!"
* Family Member: "Do you think God will be mad at her?"
* Bank: "Excuse me?"
* Family Member: "Did you just get what I was telling you - the part about her being dead?"
* Bank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor."
Supervisor gets on the phone:
* Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you, she died in January."
* Bank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
* Family Member: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?"
* Bank: (Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?"
* Family Member: "No, I'm her great nephew." (Lawyer info given)
* Bank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?"
* Family Member: "Sure." (fax number is given)
After they get the fax:
· Bank: "Our system just isn't set-up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help."
· Family Member: "Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care."
· Bank: "Well, the late fees and charges do still apply."
· Family Member: "Would you like her new billing address?"
· Bank: "That might help."
· Family Member: "Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69."
· Bank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!"
· Family Member: "What do you do with dead people on your planet?
That doesn't make sense. The debt is supposed to be transferred to her estate (and the new address is the address of the executor of the will or the administrator of the estate.)
Insanity in CA is rampant
The key piece of information that either wasn't in the article or you/I missed is when were they installed. Could this be a case that the company rushes to houses were someone dies and puts solar panels on the house and then creates fake contracts?
This did come to mind because apparently she died a month after signing the contract. The timing while convenient for the contractor seems suspect to me along with the fact the panels were not even connected. I am thinking a lien scam.
But that company was swallowed up by another company....
@@joshuaguenin9507 Not saying it is true in this case but selling and reselling a company is a tactic to stay in front of trouble and liabilities. Follow the bouncing ball.
Yeah, because that *has* to be thing that really happens. Maybe she's dead because she was murdered by a prospective gang member who followed her home after she flashed her lights at him because he had his high beams on.
what if there are no living relatives who care about any contract
I'm wondering how much it's going to cost to fix the roof. They had to knock holes in it to mount the panels.
The "panels." There's no way those were real solar panels, the scam would have netted so much more money if they had hooked up real equipment to the house and the grid and then transferred the power bill into their name...then send her a fake power bill every month at the higher rate. With this scam, they had to install something on the roof that wasn't hooked up, and then charged her just barely a cent per kWH above what the power company charges...it makes no sense to me. These criminals really don't seem like the brightest bulbs on the tree if you excuse the pun : )
@@MrJonsonville5 18ç per khw but a 3% rate hike per year for 25 years. Ya it's long game. White collar crime.
And there is the email thing with it as well, which is something that would also point towards it being a fraud situation. When you add the timing of it, the panels getting installed after her death could easily be a point towards a salesman getting sneaky about things right before the company purchase/merger
Predatory loans for solar were a huge problem in Arizona a few years ago. The state offered special financing programs. So solar companies sent out their own agents to act like third-party contractors and get people that couldn't afford it, people that didn't understand, and people who didn't have the mental capacity to consent to sign up for this solar program. The state even let people with no understanding of solar at all to be third-party sellers and misrepresent the prices. It really delayed the public's willingness to get solar. It was restructured and is doing better for everyone, but many people are still suffering the effects. Many people lost their homes to this state-backed scam. :/
When my wife died she had student loans. I never signed on/co-signed anything to do with her student loans. They started strong arm tactics to try to get me to pay her student loans. I told them she had died and they wanted me to provide them all the information about her death. I declined. I told them to find out the information the same way as I did. Every time a letter came in about her student loan I just wrote "Deceased. Return to sender". From my understanding it is highly illegal to write that on the envelope unless she was really dead. Took three or four times. They stopped trying to get me to pay for a loan I was no part of.
Student loan places are the worst. I had one call our house because a relative had our same last name (married) when they took loans out a decade earlier. They had defaulted and since gotten married and changed their last name. The woman was abusive and nasty to me on the phone. She assumed since i was female that I was the person on the loan. After we went round for a bit and I was very angry with her (I only answered the land line because they were calling and leaving messages every day), she finally decided that she believed me that it was a relative of ours who had changed their name and moved. Then she gets sweet as can be trying to get me to provide location name and phone number. I told her, if you hadn’t been harassing us for a loan that simply has the same last name and gotten abusive with me, then perhaps I would help you out. Not happening now.
Elderly people do require protection. Having a trusted person with power of attorney would be a cure to an issue like this with the trustee having the singular signing authority.
This contract seems strange, I've installed solar panels on 2 different homes and just paid for panels and labor, then worked deal with power company for the rate they pay on overages going back into the grid. This does save a lot on power bills but still takes about ten years to recoup. This sounds like they don't charge for installation, then become the homes power company on a 25 year contract, so unless this is the power company offering this, or a company working directly with them, then this is an impossible contract for a solar company to fulfill, because unless they also installed large battery storage, solar will not supply 100% power needs. Of course this contract was also sold to a person that would be 120 years old by the end of the agreement so maybe there's some holes in this strategy anyway.
Case should have been sent to the states AG for review for elder abuse
Making a 25-year long contract with a 91 year-old is all kinds of scummy. And she was billed by kW/h generated, and not kW/h used? There is so much wrong with that contract if that was actually what was written on it.
So, we had a problem with panels as well. We live in Mass, anyhow our Grandfather passed away in 2010 and the solar panels were not fully paid off. We endured a lot of harrasment and even threats they would come to our home and rip them off. Our lawyer Let them know that nobody related to my Grandfather is responsible for what he signed, and that they could not take the solar panels off the house as It would leave holes / damage to the property. We ended up in court and the judge said the same thing. We won the case and got to keep the panels. I felt bad for them originally until all the threats started.
Ten years ago or so, I answered my door several times to meet a person asking to see my electric bill, to see if I could get a better rate. I was not about to do that. I asked to see theirs, or the company president's electric bill, or just a sample. These conversations frequently ended with me demanding that the person get off my porch. I even contacted the police a couple of times with a description. "Oh, they're at it again" was the usual reply.
My dad, with Alzheimers, answered the phone and we heard him keep saying "Yes." My mom asked him "who are you talking to?' Answer was "idunno." Mom picks up the phone, finds out it was a telemarketing rep and says, whatever my husband agreed to is not valid and cancel anything he agreed to. The telemarketer, at least, was classy enough to realize what just happened and apologized. No unexpected items ever appeared.
I suspect this 'contract' was written and signed by someone overseas....
I was thinking the sales associate signed it.
@@Duncan_Campbell If a process server can fake a signature and toss a summons in the storm drain for only a small amount of money, you just know someone will commit fraud for a lot more money.
Back in the 90s, my grandmother, rest her soul, thought it would be very generous to buy us a new Saturn before she killed herself.
So let's say I've been familiar with how this goes since I was very young.
I would also like to say the people at Saturn were very understanding and had the matter taken care very respectfully
i just hope you mean a saturn automobile or you'll have to wait until i get my tin foil hat of understanding
I'm familiar with the company involved, and the incident happened about 20 miles from me.
Not only am I not shocked, I'm barely even surprised.
At 91, I think the company should review any contract sold to on elderly person
Where I live, half my electric bill has nothing to do with the cost of the electricity itself. Half the bill consists of infrastructure charges, right of way fees, a litany of fixed taxes, fuel costs, and non-mandatory fees. Even if I used ZERO electricity, I'd have an electric bill.
That's legitimate, to a point. You are paying for the fact that power is available at the flick of a switch as well as the fact that there are people dealing with problems. Those don't go away because you don't use any power.
Plus government grabs, of course.
Same here in Canada. There is a cost of electricity generation (rate that is often quoted when how much electricity costs is dicussed), but then cost of delivery - roughly similar to cost of generation, plus municipal fees and taxes and riders, so in total twice the 'cost of electricity'
This could have been solved in a five minute phone call.
"Hello, are you the president of the company? Good! Your people installed your equipment on my dead mothers house under a false contract. You have 72 hours to remove your equipment or I will assume that it is abandoned. If you have a problem with this then you will see me on the 6:00 news!"
Lol Good luck with that.
Call the police about abandoned equipment on the property (the solar panels).
@@Foolish188 It is quite easy if they had power of attorney and guardianship over her. Even if not file Elder protection laws not sure what they are but they are usually some that will protect them from exploitation.
well gene you had best get your robin hood butt over there and help those folks out right away
18.5c per kWh is a ridiculous ripoff rate for power, especially for self-generated solar. It seems a lot like they installed the panels without any actual interaction with the woman, possibly after her death, so they could try to scam new owners for this contract.
My power is 13c per kWh with a 2c per kWh delivery fee and that's from a public power company.
Power Purchase agreements suck
When I was a Census taker in 2010, and a few times there were individuals of age, I can assume past retirement ready to give me their social security number right off the bat when I did not even ask for it specifically. Just being an authority, no matter how minuscule like a lowly census taker is enough for the elderly to be agreeable. This is also how lowlife salespeople prey on the elderly by making their sales pitch into an urgent matter, and they are there to help.
I remember an older Santa Barbara attorney that told me to remember in any deal don't commit an unconscionable act. You will lose. It will be hard to win a case if a little old 91yr lady creeps up to the tabe using a walker.
I watch this channel daily to get your take on different laws.
It's not as rare as you think. My mother-in-law who is 75 and has alzheimers was suckered into buying a $17k sun room for her house. She wrote a check, which bounced, because she is living in 1975 when she had money. It's taken us a year to get this handled.
A friend of ours whose mom had ordered Fingerhut, then the mom passed away the company kept hounding the child for the money. I told the child to say she moved; give the company the address of the cemetery and the plot number as the new address since they did not care that she was dead and still wanted to collect their money.
This is the first time ive heard of this business model.. most solar equipment providers finance the equipment not sell you the electricity produced. Under that theory I would say the contract would have been unenforceable anyway.. if they had financed the equipment then I would have bet they could have filed a workmans lien. odd part of this model is solar panels almost never supply enough energy to power the house so they are still purchasing energy from PG&E.
Been in that exact situation where we installed a furnace and owner died the next day. Because we’re an LLC it would cost more to pay a lawyer to file a lien than the profit off the job and had to eat because LLCs & lawyers.
If you can figure out how to file for the permit and/or notice of construction, you should be able to figure out the paperwork to convert that into a lien. Or really, you just have to look up when the probate hearing is and show up and hand the bill to the judge. Of course, if they were insolvent, then you're screwed.
The estate has to publish notice to creditors.
That's called a tax write-off 😅
18.5 per kwh is still over price compared to average energy cost across the US
I agree.
18.5 per kwh is double what we pay in Missouri.
In the winter it drops to 6.5 kwh after the monthly period exceeds 1000 kwh. I'm on a heat pump and hybrid water heater. I count every kw... lol
Yep. Another reason not to be in CA. I pay about 10.5 cents
Mine on average is about .15 per kwh, but I am including all fees and taxes( bill amount/kwh=0.15).
we are talking about the utility company that has the highest rates in the U.S. PG&E is not telling the truth about the average rate payers average cost. 18.5 is the lifeline rate. around .29 is the next step, then to about .43 per kwh.
@@jimmytate7587 California has everything... I would throw these electric rates in the bin. lol
My Father-in-law owned a timeshare. When he passed, my wife (the executor) contacted the time share and to inform them he had passed. They demanded to know who was going to assume the contract and that if we did not transfer the contract to someone, they would assign it to the executor. It started to get ugly and it took a lawyer to end it.
I highly doubt she really signed a 25 year contract in her 90's🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
"we are unable to move forward with the cancellation of this contract" is about as legalspeak as possible for "shit's fucked up here, let us get back to you"
It is entirely plausible that the first company was a pushy-shell company to get all the contracts signed through deceit and it was always planned for the second company to receive the first. This is why I put my initials on all pages of a contract that I'm agreeing to in MY OWN PEN. If I see a copy of a contract that doesn't have my initials in my own pen on all pages it's felony charges time. Yes, twice.
Solution: Cover the panels so they don't generate power you have to pay for.
Result: Like-new panels 25 years later.
They weren’t plugged in.
@@RevMarket They won't be like-new if you don't cover them though.
@ Lehto’s law and community... Why was a 95 year old lady entering into a 25 year contract , if I heard you right? Too many things wrong with this scenario in my opinion. 🤔❤️🇺🇸
It is hard for many old people to say No and the scammers know this. Unfortunately without a clear law it could be hard to get them to stop. In Finland such targeted selling to people over 75 is banned.
@@okaro6595 good point. When I heard it was an elderly woman in her 90s and the terms of the contract many things came to mind. First of all, not to be negative but she most likely had diminished capacity when the unethical sales person sold her the product. I have been in sales and a good and ethical person does not have to stoop to such tactics. So not cool on the salesperson and the company. The lack of business ethics can and should slither away now (hopefully).🤔❤️🇺🇸
I always thought getting solar was meant to NOT pay for kwh anymore. And maybe even SELL energy back to the city. Why would you PAY for electricity if you have panels generating enough for your needs?
Cause you don't buy the solar panels.
I took a PV (solar) panel class. The panels can take 5 - 15 years to break even (ROI). Why would a 91 year old person install panels when the chance of her seeing ROI in her lifetime is almost none. They took advantage of the elderly person.