Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/23/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnresolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have Solar with the company Solar Ray *** at *******************************. I was having issues where the inverters were throwing errors and half of my system was not working. Solar Ray and a contractor (***** *******) under their hire came to my house to troubleshoot and determined the inverter was bad. The inverter was covered under warranty and they replaced it but I did pay $350 for the labor to install the inverter on January 8 2024. After the replacement, the same issue was happening so they had replaced the wrong part. The contractor came out a second time and determined that there was a bad solar panel on the roof. He left this bad panel disconnected while he could order a new panel as he said it could take a few weeks to get a new panel. The contractor told me that since I paid $350 and the inverter did not fix the issue that when the new solar panel came in he would install it and not charge me for labor a second time.I did not hear back from the contractor or Solar Ray for a few months so so I gave them a call. Solar Ray had fired the contractor and never reached back out to me to replace the solar panel. I spoke with ******* who is the owner of Solar Ray on the phone and he said he would get some more information and call me back. After this phone call, around May 2024 I have never been able to reach anyone in Solar Ray or get a call back. All my calls go unanswered and all my voicemails are ignored. They have completely blocked me and will not fix my solar after I paid $350 for a warranty item which was not the issue.With this, I just want my solar fixed and I'm not going to pay them anything more to do it. Im not able to get in touch with them and I need help to do this.

  Business Response

  Date: 10/08/2024

  Apologies to this customer, however the answering service for the company records and transcribes all messages and has been in place since we stopped relying on the all to commonly unreliable human element.  There are absolutely no calls into the company from the number listed for this customer.  Could there be a problem?  Yes but it seems that the customer is only calling personal phone numbers and communicating, likely, outside of working hours.  If the manufacturer warrantied the inverter then surely it was defective and as stated by the customer that work was done. There could have been an issue with updating the monitoring with the new inverter but until seeing this complaint we have received no calls into the office, missed, messages or otherwise.  We invite the customer to reach out and call the office and not any past or current employee personal number.  We would be happy to help.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/08/2024

   
  Complaint: 22187641
  
  I am rejecting this response because this is the most childish answer you could have given. Attaching photos of all the calls I made to Solar Ray which include me leaving voicemails. Photo of ******* calling me back initially but after we spoke on May 20 you were never to be heard of again. Photo of the fired contractor giving me ***** phone number who responded to me initially in text but then never responded again. Let me just keep calling and send more pictures of ignored calls because all of these are during business hours. When I thought I was blocked I have even more calls from my wifes phone number which are all unanswered and ignored. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***** *******

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/10/2024

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnresolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  They do not have any costumer support, terrible service, I strongly advise to not buy from this company. After 3 years of my system operating it stop working, I contact them they send a third party technician that charged $320 and did not fix the system. The worst problem was that they took 4 months (without my system working properly ) to answer my call. During this period I left more than 40 calls and several email, never answered. Finally after 4 months they came down to check my system and the conclusion was the fault was the electricity provider that was kicking off my system and they could not fix. I suspected because several house in my street have solar power and they were working fine. I called another company and ***************************************************************************************** 5 minutes it was fixed. That is the level of customer service. Be aware, they promise the world to sell, but them you are by yourself with a bad system.I want them to refund the $320 I paid without fixing, plus the 4-6 months compensation for my system not working because they were unable to identify the issue as the circuity breaker. The 4-6 months were also caused for the lack of costumer support. I have track of all the emails I sent in that period plus more than 40 calls unanswered.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/10/2024

  I personally visited the site with a technician and repeatedly knocked on the door to speak with the owner.  We attempted to access the parameters of the inverter on site but needed the internet and inverter passcodes.  Customer was home because we saw them leave while we were at the side of the house trying to trouble shoot the system.  Possibly the 2nd party technician fixed the problem but not likely based on replacing a breaker but more likely by performing the updates we attempted but could not because the customer simply refused to answer their phone and door.  Monitoring has been and still is a problem with this system so remote diagnosis is not as accurate as it could have been.  For sure on the visit by the technician resulted in a system restart resulting in system operation.  Intermittent problems that require investigation of real time data assume some responsibility of the owner/customer to grant and make available the required data that cannot be accessed without the customer's passwords or other relevant permissions.  This was not given by the customer, in fact during my visit neither the phone was answered not the door of which it became obvious that the customer was home at that time.  As far as resolving the issue and other obvious issues that show up on the monitoring of the customer system since the supposed fix by others we would love to be of service but only if allowed to perform the service minus the not quite accurate claims, arguing and slander.  The system has been a solid performer for 4 years with a short amount of time for some troublesome safety feature activations that required resets and as stated multiple times already, we sent a technician that remedied the problem for a short amount of time and then I personally visited the site to investigate further but had no cooperation to do so from the customer.   

  Customer Answer

  Date: 01/08/2025

  Hello,

  The answer from Solar-*** saying that they come to my house and had no cooperation from the customer, even more, allegedly that I never answered their messages, it is simply not true. In order to prove that it not true and Solar-Ray is just trying to find an excuse for the bad service, I am attaching the email from Solar-Ray me acknowledging that way it was handled was not good, second, I am added screen showing a sample of the several emails exchanged about this issue. So, it is clear there was communication and not true that I never answered back or denied cooperating as he tried to imply. I can share the content of more than 25 emails that we exchanged to prove it. Emails where it clear can be show that there was communication, and I clear informing that system was not working, and that I want their support. I have data to back up what I am saying, but this is the way he treats the customer. 

  Also, how can them affirm that was not simple circuit ******, if them were not able to fix it? I have the data to show that the system was not working for several months, even emails from ****** ***** saying that is not working and allegedly the problem was the *** grid shooting down it (no sense at all since my neighbors have solar system and nobody had any problem with the same grid). Even more important, the fact is after the 2nd party came and change the circuit ******, system has been working properly since. I have the receipt to prove that was only the circuit breaker was changed. The fact is that the system has working after this, as simple as that.

  I paid Solar-Ray to come and fix, they came but they did not fix. Even worst, lost several months, with several email exchanged, and multiple phone calls not answered that the system was not generating because (paying from my pocket Eletric bill) because they were blaming *** grid and it was just a circuit breaker, as proved by the reality, system has been working since the replacement.

  That is really the behavior of Solar Ray company. Always try to blame the customer. They cannot accept the fact, system is working after the circuit ****** change and keeps trying to create a story where the customer or anybody else is at fault, not Solar-Ray.

  There is only on problem, I have all the email, messages and receipts.

  At least I would expect the refund of the service they never delivered.

  Best regards,

  ******* *****

   

  Customer Answer

  Date: 01/09/2025

  Hello,

  The answer from Solar-Ray saying that they come to my house and had no cooperation from the customer, even more, allegedly that I never answered their messages, it is simply not true. In order to prove that it not true and Solar-Ray is just trying to find an excuse for the bad service, I am attaching the email from Solar-Ray me acknowledging that way it was handled was not good, second, I am added screen showing a sample of the several emails exchanged about this issue. So, it is clear there was communication and not true that I never answered back or denied cooperating as he tried to imply. I can share the content of more than 25 emails that we exchanged to prove it. Emails where it clear can be show that there was communication, and I clear informing that system was not working, and that I want their support. I have data to back up what I am saying, but this is the way he treats the customer. 

  Also, how can them affirm that was not simple circuit ******, if them were not able to fix it? I have the data to show that the system was not working for several months, even emails from ****** ***** saying that is not working and allegedly the problem was the *** grid shooting down it (no sense at all since my neighbors have solar system and nobody had any problem with the same grid). Even more important, the fact is after the 2nd party came and change the circuit ******, system has been working properly since. I have the receipt to prove that was only the circuit breaker was changed. The fact is that the system has working after this, as simple as that.

  I paid Solar-Ray to come and fix, they came but they did not fix. Even worst, lost several months, with several email exchanged, and multiple phone calls not answered that the system was not generating because (paying from my pocket Eletric bill) because they were blaming *** grid and it was just a circuit breaker, as proved by the reality, system has been working since the replacement.

  That is really the behavior of Solar Ray company. Always try to blame the customer. They cannot accept the fact, system is working after the circuit ****** change and keeps trying to create a story where the customer or anybody else is at fault, not Solar-Ray.

  There is only on problem, I have all the email, messages and receipts.

  At least I would expect the refund of the service they never delivered.

  Best regards,

  ******* *****

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/01/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We used our life savings to buy solar panels from Solar-Ray. Paid in full -- about $22,000. The bid we got was for solar panels that would cover our entire electric bill. It has never come close. We had a five-year full warranty. Over the five years, I repeatedly emailed them. I wanted them to come out and see why our panels weren't working anything close to what was promised. They never checked it out. (They also failed to turn the system on, so for at least two months (I can check if you need me to, and let you know), we saved nothing at all -- till they finally told my husband how to turn the system on.) They also damaged our new roof while installing the panels, and we had to have it fixed for insurance to continue to cover us. The biggest thing is that the panels don't work. Florida Light and Power came out and said that the system is producing only half of what it should be producing. At this point, the panels will never "pay for themselves," as promised. We will never "save a lot of money," as promised. They are probably obsolete by now, since they are more than five years old. The company continues to ignore me. (Occasionally when I email them, they'll contact my husband. I guess they don't want to deal with a woman. The owner has only emailed me back bullying lies, saying that the system is doing very well.) They have never come out, found out why the system isn't producing as promised, and fixed the problem. Nor have they reimbursed us for the electric bill for the months they'd failed to turn on the system. Nor have they reimbursed us for our roof repair. For the first few weeks after it was installed, the web page that reports on our solar production was not working, so we couldn't check to see that, in fact, we weren't getting any power from the panels. We noticed our bills were the same, which was when we started calling them.) Our warranty is finally over, so it is now obvious that they are planning on doing nothing to stand behind their work.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/01/2023

  The above complaint is not only untrue but also slanderous.  The only thing true is that the customer has continually called and complained.  The truth is that they purchased a system just under a system size that would have required them to get a $1,000,000.00 liability policy for the utility company.  The truth is that they were provided a projected production report from a Department of Energy website, PVwatts, and that the system has met and or exceeded those provided production values.  The truth is that the bottom line cost for the system was $21,980.00. That qualified for a 30% FITC leaving a net cost of $15,386.00 not counting the utility rebates available at the time.  The monitoring shows lifetime production of 76,983 KWHRS at the time of this e-mail.  That is a value in excess of $11,000 in production, electricity you would have otherwise paid *** for, in less than 6 years which means the system and incentives have so far covered $17,500.00 of the initial cost of $21,980.00 leaving a remaining cost of $4,480.00 which based on historical and recorded production of the system will realize this value within the next 3 years.  The truth is that the historical monthly dollar value from production of the system has averaged more than $160/month, proven by the historical monitored production data of the system.  Since the installation there have been not less than 36 tropical storms or hurricanes in Florida and also considering the historical false claims and accusations so to all of a sudden have a claim of roof damage from work done nearly 6 years ago.  We have repeatedly provided all information and access to show the customer that the system is in fact operating as expected and as promised.  To be clear, we made no assumptions nor is there any reason for us not to have simply sold the customer a larger system at the time other than the customer not wanting to purchase a $1,000,000 liability policy for a larger system. All projected system performance data was provided to the customer prior to any contract and actual performance data downloaded directly from the system is and has been readily available to the customer.  Provided in the document is proof of projected production and also the system monitored data.  The system consists of two arrays, one facing East with a little early morning shade and the other array facing West that is mostly clear of shade so the PVwatts report is in two parts for both arrays but the system monitoring is as a plant and in total.  Finally, there is no discrimination, the file and phone number associated with the account just so happens to be that of the Husband, **** ******** so initial response goes to the contact information put into our customer system, by office staff that are female but that shouldn't matter other than to respond to additional, false, inflammatory claims.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/15/2023

  So, addressed already but...  Point by point.

  1.  The duration of time in turning on the system were entirely due to the customer's insistence, to the Utility, that they not install a "smart meter" which caused some delay.  Regarding whether or not the customer followed the instructions to turn on the system fully or not also seems to be somehow our fault.  After installation all Solar-Ray installed systems are started up to confirm proper operation before being de energized as is required by Building authorities and also the utility.  Customer called when their meter was changed to their satisfaction and stated that the start up operation could be performed by themselves, instruction was given.  By the way there are indicating lights on the inverters clearly visible as well as a screen to verify operation and or if any faults, Red, Green or nothing at all, this is also conveyed to customers.  Will no doubt be claimed as a lie but it is historically true and basic common practice for 20 years and literally thousands of customers.  Possibly we did overlook something but this customer claims we missed everything, lied, misrepresented acted unprofessionally, did a shoddy job and didn't take their best interest into account.  I can assure you that none of that is true but how is a company to respond to hostile customers with demands that are unreasonable and claims that are simply not true?

  2.  Monitoring for the solar pv system shows active since May of 2017 on the monitoring platform.  Monitoring is not dependent for operation of the system.  Again all delays resulted from the customer's instance that the utility not install a smart meter.  The assumption about accuracy of the metering from SMA is without question and bankable.  In fact there is an opportunity for the customer to gain digital currency based on the production.  

  *** representatives are not experts on solar production, they are utility employees with little to no training on solar electric systems outside of how the electrical components are installed.  When a customer calls and complains about their bill and also complains about a company that installed equipment that greatly reduces how much money they will make from the customer guess who they are likely going to throw under the bus?

  Finally, if everyday in Florida was a sunny day for sure we would have installed the lion's share of the solar modules on the West because of the early AM shade but that shade clears off fast and more than half of the days in Florida are not full sun.  Because we are a peninsula, the afternoons are traditionally the part of the day that clouds form and that it rains.  For this reason if there hadn't been any early shading to the East we would have installed the majority of the array on the East.  In fact, solar noon right now and at the time of the customers full sunny day record was about 1:30pm and if you break down production, even on the customer report you will see that peak power is before and up to solar noon and from there drops off.  This is also due to heat.  Considerations were taken beyond what is common understanding because we are actual experts.

  Consuming power is not a mystery and likely never going to change until we stop being the target and the actual consumption is addressed.  We did sell a system based on information provided by the customer and predicted production value was disclosed, which turns out to be accurate now that time has passed.  At the time of selling the system it is my understanding that there were 2 adults and 2 children.  Ovens use a great del of electricity as do, stoves, toasters, microwaves, hot water heaters, hair dryers and basically any other appliance that either runs a motor or heating element so any increase of use is an increase in production.

  We have been slandered at every opportunity and on every format by this customer and yet we can clearly prove that we did provide service when and if it was actually warranted.  We can prove that the system is installed properly, many hurricanes and tropical storms weathered,  and operating as it should.  The demands are not reasonable and the claims of wrongdoing simply aren't true.  There isn't really more to say.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/23/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  The arguments given by Solar Ray are partly informative, which is important.
  They are also incomplete. I will respond to the points as given in the recent message from Solar Ray: 1, 2 and (3) Finally:

  1. We are not claiming that Solar Ray 'missed everything'. From what we can tell, the panels were installed professionally and accurately. We are disappointed on one key thing: that the system has not handled our normal electrical use. We were led to believe that it would, but it does not. 
  We understand that certain measures had to be taken because we do not have a Smart Meter installed. We understood that this would not be a problem, and we do not believe that it should have been.
  We could go on arguing with Solar Ray saying they 'told us everything' and us saying that we came through the process with insufficient information. This is not 'slander' as we are hearing, but it is a failure to communicate. 
  There is no way that us not having a Smart Meter should have caused such a delay of three months for our system to start working. We really think that Solar Ray should have checked that we were in fact having electricity generated. They are the experts; we are not. We actually had to wait until we got our *** bills to see that no new electricity was being generated. We did not know about the switches (two sets of switches) and the color coded lights. Now we know to check such things, but we expected that Solar Ray would have checked that. It seems like basic good practice, doesn't it?

  2. This point refers to the issue discussed above. The fact that we did not have a Smart Meter caused Solar Ray to use our home wifi network for communication with the online monitoring system. This should have been straight-forward, taken care of right away, and confirmed that power was being reported. But it took months. 

  We do not have the expertise to determine the accruacy of the *** energy specialist's assessment. He tells us that "the solar system was producing 5.5 Kilowatts" when he measured it. This is concerning to us, but we know it is not a full analysis.

  3. "Finally..." The point that the afternoons are on average more cloudy, here in Florida, is a sensible point. Yes, those at Solar Ray are the experts, while we are just customers, trying to understand why our bills are so much higher than we expected. If this expert assessment is true, then the average afternoon cloud cover is about equal to our daily tree shade coverage in the morning. For all we know, Solar Ray may have made the best call regarding that. It would take a detailed analysis of many days throughout the year to confirm that or argue against it.

  We do not have a simple way of analysing our entire home electrical use. Yes, we have two adults and two children; now one is an adult in college. We keep our AC cooling system averaging 80 degrees, about 5 degrees warmer than most Floridians. We are not aware of any excessive energy use in our home. If we were experts in all of this, we could say something more definitive. So far, that's what we've got.

  I am sorry if we said anything that is technically inaccurate. We are not experts. Our bottom line is that we were led to believe this system would handle our normal energy use and it does not. If there had been any question at the time of ordering our system, we would have looked into it further and certainly would have considered for instance adding a solar hot water system. We were told that would not be necessary. I am certain, at least, that this statement is true, regardless whether we were given the standard protocol of information.
  We also feel let down by the lack of follow-through once our system was installed. We did everything we knew, as consumers, to do our part. The fact that it took so long for our system to be turned on just doesn't make sense. Even if we did not have a Smart Meter, and even if we were told (at some time) that a couple switches had to be turned, and told (at some time) that there were also another couple of switches that had to be flicked. If there had been a clear and determined follow-up, this all would have been handled within a week of installation. It took nearly three months. 

  
  Sincerely,
  
  **** *** ***** ********

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/08/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Solar Ray installed a solar system on my roof in October2015. The system worked well and to my satisfaction till March 2022 where some malfunctions appeared. A representative of the company came to check it, restarted the system and all seemed well for roughly a month. Since then the system, which is supposed to have a 30 year guaranteed warranty, has been consistently malfunctioning. Reps from the company have occasionally stopped by and last December (2022] informed me that the modules on some of the panels were defective and would be replaced. After repeated pleadings, phone calls, emails, and texts most of them not answered, I have resorted to filing this complaint. I do have the appropriate reported graphs indicating the declining performance since last June (2022) and I will submit them to you upon request. I have exhausted all limits of patience as I have been confronted with indifference and apathetic, callous neglect. Meanwhile, that for which I paid cash, is not functioning and costing me heftily on my electric bill. *Submitted attached graphs.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/02/2023

  The system has Warrantable product failures, this is true.  However, as installers we warrant our workmanship and as stated there is no complaint about workmanship but rather production and this has been found to be some product defects of which there would be significant labor to remedy and or to pursue the manufacturer's warranty.  It is my understanding that this discussion was made but that the customer feels cost of labor and time to pursue the warranty remedy should be ours.  This is not practiced in any trade.  If the failures were due to our negligence then of course we would not charge but the failures are clearly not workmanship related on our part.  We would be happy to do the work and remedy the system.  

  Business Response

  Date: 03/06/2023

  Okay, unfortunately I have learned that certain employees did not perform tasks nor did they collect data necessary to remedy this at the original time this problem presented itself.  Now that I am fully aware that although the product failures are purely manufacturer defect we certainly did not handle this particular customer as we should have.  In fact we failed.  This very day we are returning to the project location to install brand new solar modules of a greater capacity than originally purchased and any warranties will be pursued by our company separate from any of the customer's expense or inconvenience.  I sincerely apologize for this overbite.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/06/2023

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***** ********