CT AG suing N.J.-based Vision Solar

Action comes in wake of customer complaints

HARTFORD — State Attorney General William Tong’s office on Thursday announced a lawsuit against Vision Solar, alleging the residential solar company pressured homeowners into signing up for solar power systems.

State officials allege the company also failed to obtain the proper work permits, in some cases leaving homeowners without a working solar power system that could be hooked up to the grid, and misrepresented financing and tax credits to residents.

The office said the company, which is registered as a Pennsylvania limited liability company but is principally located in New Jersey, began doing business in Connecticut in 2020. The attorney general’s office said that since August 2021, it has received 14 complaints about Vision Solar’s practices.

“We’re investigating numerous complaints regarding highpressure solar industry sales tactics, but Vision Solar’s predatory practices are far and away the worst we have seen,” Tong said in a statement Thursday. “Vision Solar preyed on low-income, elderly, and disabled homeowners, pressuring them into unaffordable loans for solar panels that in some cases were never activated.”

“Their egregious misconduct appears to have violated multiple laws, and we’re going to hold them accountable,” he said. “Our lawsuit seeks to get money back for Vision customers, as well as fines and court orders to stop Vision from engaging in these unfair and deceptive practices.”

The company has not responded to the complaint filed in court.

The complaint filed in state Superior Court in Hartford alleges the company’s sales tactics included multiple “cold” calls to set up a home sales pitch. The company’s agents would then stay longer than homeowners wanted, in some cases for hours or after they’d been asked to leave, the complaint states. The sellers would try to pressure homeowners into signing up for solar installation the same day as the inhome sales pitch.

Contracts were presented for homeowners to sign “on the salesperson’s cell phone, tablet or laptop computer where the consumer could not easily read or evaluate the documents in advance,” the complaint states.

The state also alleges a Vision salesperson specifically “dealt only with an intellectually disabled individual despite knowing the other owner would not permit the solar installation,” Tong’s office said in a news release.

Others complained the company completed work without obtaining permits, preventing the systems from being hooked up to the grid and leaving customers to pay lenders for systems they cannot use while they also lost out on power generated by their solar system to offset their electrical bill.

Tong’s office has issued warnings in the past about unscrupulous business practices by solar companies.

Last year, the attorney general’s office announced a court order blocking Solar Wolf Energy, a Massachusetts company, from doing business in the state. The company was alleged to have taken customers deposits and then left them with solar projects that were incomplete or never started. The company has since filed for bankruptcy, Tong’s office said.