West Valley Solar Installer sued for $4 million dollars (Phoenix, Tucson: sales, 2015)

[Juram]

By one of the biggest solar manufacturers in the world.



Salt River Solar and Wind is being accused of having not paying for the modules they've ordered for almost 2 years and of fraudulent transferring utility rebate authorizations from one manufacturer to another, thus putting them on the hook for over $2.5 million in unpaid rebates to the manufacturer, in this case, Sun Power LLC. Add another 1.7 million for unpaid merchandise and this gets ugly really quickly.

SunPower North America LLC v. Salt River Solar & Wind LLC et al :: Justia Dockets & Filings


The court case describes multiple incidents where a rebate check was promised to the manufacturer, the manufacturer fronted solar modules to Salt River Solar, Salt River Solar later turned around and assigned the exact same rebate amount to another manufacturer for even more modules.

DEFENDANTS’ FRAUDULENT SCHEME
36. Defendants Salt River and Fricker, individually and in concert, and in order
to induce SunPower to extend Defendant Salt River the financial benefits available under
the SRAP, employed devices, schemes and artifices to defraud SunPower (“Defendants’
Fraudulent Scheme”).
37. A critical part of Defendants’ Fraudulent Scheme was to require
homeowners, who entered into sale/purchase and installation agreements (“Sales and
Installation Agreements”) with Defendant Salt River, to sign a Rebate Assignment Form.
The Rebate Assignment Form assigned to the SRAP the homeowners’ expected Rebate
from their utility.
38. Defendant Salt River, through its members and others acting under its
direction and control, then used the purported Sales and Installation Agreements and the


Rebate Assignment Forms, showing the SRAP as the assignee of the Rebate, to complete
the SRAP Packages.
39. Once completed, Defendant Salt River submitted the SRAP Packages to
SunPower with the specific intent to secure, and for the specific purpose of inducing
SunPower to provide, Defendant Salt River with Advanced Rebates.
40. After Defendant Salt River submitted certain SRAP Packages to SunPower
and received the Advanced Rebate associated with the SRAP Package, Defendant Salt
River, without notice to or the consent of SunPower, either: (A) improperly and
fraudulently altered and changed the existing Rebate Assignment Forms so that the payee
would be CentroSolar Financial Services (“CentroSolar”) rather than SunPower as the
homeowner had designated; and/or (B) contrary to its representations to, and agreements
with, SunPower, improperly reassigned to CentroSolar the Rebates that previously had
been assigned by homeowners to SunPower pursuant to the original Rebate Assignment
Forms.
41. Upon information and belief, CentroSolar is a solar products manufacturer
that, in part, offers financing programs for residential solar installations, including
programs similar to the SRAP.
42. Upon further information and belief, Defendant Salt River surreptitiously changed the payee on the Rebate Assignment Form from SunPower to CentroSolar and/or surreptitiously reassigned the Rebate from SunPower to CentroSolar, in order to
induce CentroSolar to provide Defendant Salt River with financial benefits similar to those it had already obtained from SunPower under the SRAP. 43. The Rebate Assignment Forms that were changed or altered without SunPower’s knowledge and consent, or the reassignment of the Rebates, are attached hereto as Exhibit E.

Rebate of $11,559.60 from Arizona Public Service (“APS”) (reservation no.
14832) to the SRAP. Based on the Rebate Assignment Form signed by the
*******, and included in the SRAP Package submitted to SunPower by
Defendant Salt River, Defendant Salt River was credited an Advanced Rebate on
September 12, 2010, of $10,403.64. Thereafter, the same Rebate Assignment
form was altered or revised by, upon information and belief, Defendant Salt River,
to show CentroSolar as the assignee. On February 21, 2011, Defendant Fricker,
the General Manager for Defendant Salt River, also executed a Rebate Assignment
directing that the *******’ then expected Rebate of $11,661.00 be reassigned and
paid to CentroSolar instead of SunPower. Upon information and belief,
CentroSolar is listed with APS as the current payee for the full amount of the
Rebate that previously had been assigned to SunPower and that SunPower was
entitled to receive.

Reminds me of another case earlier this year involving Arizona
Solar Power which left a lot of home-owners high and dry.

Indeed, while and/or after inducing Sunower to pay Defendant ASP over $1.2 milion in Advanced Rebates, Defendant Kim fled the state of Arizona and Defendant ASP thereafter ceased doing business all together. Defendant ASP abandoned many of the homeowners from whom deposits had been collected, leaving them with


partial installations or no installation of product whatsoever, no means by which to complete the solar installations for which they had already paid Defendant ASP the full purchase price or a substantial down payment, no explanation of its conduct and no refunds of, or offers to refund, the substantial amounts that homeowners paid to
Defendant ASP. 36. Further, Defendant ASP deliberately

SunPower North America LLC v. Arizona Solar Power LLC et al :: Justia Dockets & Filings



Sunpower must be tired of dealing with deadbeats.

Moral of the story if you're a homeowner and looking at solar? Don't
pay a single penny down until there has been some work done on
your project, quite a few of these companies out there asking for
50-100% right up-front and anyone who pays that amount is
asking for trouble.

[Juram]

And now in jail.






Judge voids hundreds of solar leases in Arizona

Fraud was so rampant at a now-defunct rooftop-solar-installation company in Surprise that the owner is not only serving a five-year prison term, but a judge has released hundreds of customers from their leases with the company.
Michael Allen Fricker, 55, owned Salt River Solar and Wind, which installed rooftop solar arrays throughout Arizona.




Fricker was sentenced last month to five years in prison by Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley of Tucson, who also released 1,157 customers from their leases.
Most of those customers never saw their solar panels installed, even though many had paid deposits. But 344 customers who did receive installations are among those released from their leases, court records say. It's unclear whether any have been making monthly lease payments or if they paid leases up-front, whether they stopped paying when the company went out of business two years ago.




"This person was a serial financial predator," said Ryan Anderson, director of communications for the Attorney General's Office, which worked with the FBI on the case. "Mr. Fricker was engaged in a pattern of fraud that extended beyond his activities in Tucson."
Anderson said the Attorney General's Office was flooded with complaints statewide for problems involving equipment that was paid for but never installed, equipment that did not work properly, and customers who did not receive promised service.



Salt River Solar and Wind ceased operations in 2013 after the Registrar of Contractors revoked its license, but the Attorney General's Office and the FBI continued their investigation.
Public records suggest Salt River Solar and Wind installed about 500 leased solar arrays in SRP and APS territories from 2009 to 2012, and hundreds of additional systems were canceled in 2012 as the company ran into trouble.
Some Tucson Electric Power customers could be eligible for restitution because Fricker's activities in that utility's territory were what the AG's Office and the FBI targeted for prosecution.

Judge voids hundreds of solar leases in Arizona

TUCSON, AZ - Tucson residents who had solar panels installed may be eligible for a refund or to be released from their contract after a man was found guilty of fraudulent schemes.
Michael Fricker, 55, was the principal of the Phoenix-based company Salt River & Wind, LLC. He was convicted in October 2014 of fraudulent schemes and artifices and illegally conducting an enterprise.
Fricker would persuade Tucson residents to sign up for solar panels in which they would receive a cash rebate from Tucson Electric Power. Customers would sign a contract and pay for a portion of the system up front, with the expectation that they would receive an adjustment after Fricker’s company received the rebate.
Fricker then would have different new customers pay money up front equivalent to the rebate, plus an initial deposit for the solar panels with the false promise that they would receive a check for the rebate. They never did.

Arizona Attorney General: Tucson solar residents duped by Michael Fricker may be entitled to rebate - ABC15 Arizona







The worst part is that a lot of people were warned about doing business with this company, about the issues with fraud and incomplete installations and they chose to go through with it anyways because the deal was "just too good to be true." It literally was.

[PHOENIXtreeguy]

Sounds like a Paddock Pools type situation.

Paddock Pools License Temporarily Suspended By Arizona ROC | KJZZ

I can't post links?

[MalteseJane]

We ALMOST bought the system from them but did our research, asking neighboors and checking the Better Business Bureau. There were too many red flags and we went with someone else.

[motormaker]

Originally Posted by PHOENIXtreeguy

Sounds like a Paddock Pools type situation.

Paddock Pools License Temporarily Suspended By Arizona ROC | KJZZ

I can't post links?

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