Christina Mathieson Segura | Real Estate Education
The Second Solar Scam Comes After The First One Leaves
When a solar deal goes bad, the loan usually stays and the company often does not.
A second wave of businesses has noticed.
Some run automated pages promising a settlement that was never filed, and some promise to cancel your contract for a fee.
Most are built to profit from the stuck feeling, not to end it.
If you went solar and the deal turned out to be nothing like the pitch, the feeling that follows is hard to explain to anyone who has not lived it. The panels underperform. The savings you were promised never arrived. Meanwhile the company that sold you the system may have changed its name, stopped answering the phone, or closed its doors for good. And through all of it, the loan or the lease is still due on the first of the month, exactly as written. That combination, a system that failed you and a payment that will not let go, is what makes a person want out, and want out fast. It is a reasonable feeling. It is also the feeling a whole new set of businesses is counting on.
Start with what is true, because you are not imagining the problem. Regulators across the country have said the same thing in public filings. In March 2026, the New York Attorney General sued a residential solar company and its lending partners over what the state estimates was nearly $275 million taken from New Yorkers, alleging inflated prices, fees hidden inside those prices, government "incentives" that did not exist, and in some cases signatures captured on a tablet that homeowners never truly reviewed. Minnesota's Attorney General sued four of the largest solar lenders in 2024, alleging they buried roughly $35 million in hidden "dealer" fees inside loans on more than five thousand systems. Those companies deny wrongdoing, and that case is still being fought. The Texas Attorney General opened an initiative in 2026 and sent formal investigative demands to solar companies, and back in 2023 the attorneys general of Connecticut and Florida brought their own actions over high-pressure sales and misleading promises about savings and tax credits. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found lenders burying markup fees that pushed loan costs thirty percent or more above the cash price, and the CFPB and Federal Trade Commission issued consumer warnings while the Treasury Department published guidance to help homeowners shop for solar.
The through-line in all of it is the part most homeowners learn too late. The installer and the loan are separate things. It works the way a mortgage does: if the brokerage that sold you your house closes tomorrow, your mortgage does not vanish, because the loan was never theirs to forgive. Solar is the same, only with more companies involved, so when the one that sold you the system disappears, the financing stays exactly where it was. That is not a glitch. It is how these deals were built, and it is why you can feel abandoned by one company and still owe another every single month.
That stuck feeling is what the next group is looking for.
The first scam is the installer.
The second scam is whoever finds you afterward and sells you a rescue.
It shows up in two main forms now, and both are built to make money from the same desperation. One is a page that promises money you are supposedly owed.
The other is a company that promises to make your contract disappear.
The settlement that was never filed
Not long ago, a homeowner sent me a web page about a lawsuit settlement against the company that had sold them their solar system. The page had a dollar figure, a filing deadline, and a button that said something close to "see if you qualify." The homeowner asked me one question. Is this real? It was a fair question, so I checked it. The case number did not lead anywhere I could verify. The court named on the page did not line up with where the company actually operated. The "settlement administrator" was not one I could find through any official channel. The page itself lived on a general lawsuit blog that, on the same day, had posted nearly identical "settlement" pages about a sports memorabilia company, a television host, a major disaster claims fund, and a church. None of those had anything to do with solar, or with each other. What they shared was a brand name in the headline and a claim form at the bottom.
The notice was not a mistake.
It was a product.
These pages are cheap to build and easy to multiply, which is what makes them dangerous. A homeowner who has been burned does the most natural thing in the world and searches the name of the company that sold them solar, and a machine-built page is waiting, ready to attach an invented settlement to a real company's name and route the visitor into a claim form. It is not there to return anyone's money. It earns its keep on advertising, and on the personal information people hand over when they think they are filing a claim.
Telling a real legal notice from a manufactured one is not hard once you know what to look at. A real class action leaves a trail you can follow. It has a case number and a court, and you can look both of them up. There is a named settlement administrator with an official claims site, and class members are notified directly, by mail or a verified email, not by a banner ad that found them. You can confirm a real settlement without ever touching the page that told you about it. A manufactured page works the other way. It lives on a general lawsuit blog rather than an official site, and it pushes you to file right away, against a deadline meant to make you move before you think. The same page often mixes unrelated cases together, because the operation behind it is not following any single lawsuit. And when you try to verify the basics, the court, the case number, the geography, they do not check out, or there is nothing there to check at all. The New York case above is a useful contrast: it has a named attorney general, a real court, defendants who have the right to answer and who have not been found liable of anything, and a press release anyone can read on ag.ny.gov. Set that beside a blog page with an unverifiable court and a claim form, and the difference stops being subtle.
The company that promises to make it disappear
The second form asks for more than a click. Search the name of your solar company or your lender, and you will also find businesses promising to cancel your contract, erase your loan, or win your money back. Some invite you to take a quick quiz to "see if you qualify." There is usually a guarantee attached, and there is almost always a fee. A few of these are real consumer-protection law firms doing legitimate work. Many are not law firms at all. They are marketing operations, lead-collection sites, and debt-settlement companies wearing legal-sounding names, and telling them apart matters more than almost anything else you will do here.
The most dangerous thing some of these outfits will tell you is to stop making your payments. Please do not do that on the strength of a sales call. Stopping payment on a solar loan, a lease, or a power purchase agreement can put you in default, send the account to collections, invite a lawsuit, and damage your credit for years. If your financing runs through a PACE program, missed payments can attach to your property taxes and put the home itself at risk. Even the more responsible services in this space say the same thing: do not stop paying without advice from a licensed attorney who has actually read your contract.
A few other signals are worth slowing down for. Be wary of any company that asks for a large fee up front to "cancel" or "settle" your contract. For debt-relief services sold over the phone, federal rules prohibit charging a fee before the debt has actually been settled, so an upfront demand is a reason to stop and check. Guarantees deserve the same skepticism, because no honest person can promise a hundred percent success rate or a set dollar recovery before reading your specific agreement. And ask the simplest question of all: is there a lawyer here, and are they licensed in my state? Only a licensed attorney can give you legal advice or take legal action on your behalf. A "resource center" or an "exit service" may hand your file to a third party you never chose, or to no attorney at all.
What actually helps
Here is the good news, and most of it is free. Start with your paperwork, because every legitimate path begins there. Gather your signed contract and every addendum, your financing disclosures, the sales proposal or savings estimate you were shown, the production history from your monitoring app, and your utility bills. If you do not have all of it, request your full contract from the installer and the lender in writing. Then find out whether a cancellation right still applies to you. A door-to-door sale carries a federal three-day cooling-off right, and when the required disclosures were not properly given, the Truth in Lending Act's right of rescission can reach back as far as three years on a loan secured by your home. A licensed attorney can tell you which of these, if any, is still open in your situation.
File complaints, because they cost nothing and they build the record that regulators actually use. Send them to your state Attorney General's consumer-protection division, to the CFPB at consumerfinance.gov/complaint, and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. A company already under scrutiny from those offices has a reason to resolve your individual complaint rather than add to its file. And if your situation calls for a lawyer, hire a licensed consumer-protection attorney in your own state. Many take strong misrepresentation cases on contingency, which means you pay nothing unless they recover for you, and you can confirm any attorney through your state bar's directory before you sign a thing.
If you are the agent at the table
Real estate professionals are increasingly the first person a homeowner shows this to, usually while getting ready to sell. Whether it is a printed "settlement" page or an offer to cancel the contract, the move is the same one you would make with any unverified document. Slow it down. Confirm what is real before anyone acts on it, and keep an unproven claim out of the disclosure conversation until you know it holds up. Then point the homeowner to the channels that can actually help. You are not the attorney, and you are not the one who undoes the contract. You are the person who keeps a client who has already been hurt from being hurt a second time on your watch.
The technology is new. The instinct underneath it is old, which is to find a person who has already lost something and sell them the hope of getting it back. The original solar deal, at its worst, took advantage of a hope, that a homeowner could save money and do some good at the same time. The pitch that comes afterward takes advantage of a fear, that there is no way out and no one left to trust. Real recourse is quieter than either one. It is your own records, your state's consumer office, and a licensed attorney who works for you. A real case has a name and a courthouse behind it. A manufactured one has a button and a deadline. Once you have seen the difference, you cannot unsee it, and neither can the homeowner you show it to.
About the author
Christina Mathieson Segura is The Solar Lady of Real Estate™. She has worked in solar and real estate since 2010, more than sixteen years, and has trained thousands of REALTORS® on solar in the transaction. She is the author of seven books, including Solar Agreements in Real Estate, the guide for agents, and The Solar SOS, the companion for homeowners. A New York licensed real estate salesperson and a real estate instructor in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, she holds the HFR, AHWD, e-PRO, PSA, and SFR designations and is a LEED Green Associate. She was named to the Long Island Business News Top 50 Women in Business in 2018 and again in 2020, and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2022. She can be found at christinaeducation.com.
Sources:
Backup citations for the factual claims in the article, with links and short descriptions. Links verified July 14, 2026. Official and primary sources are listed first in each section.
1. The harm is real: state and federal enforcement
New York Attorney General (primary, press release, March 2026) — The OAG announcement of the suit against a residential solar company and its lending partners, with the nearly $275 million estimate, the allegations (nonexistent government “incentives,” inflated prices, hidden fees, tablet e-signatures, alleged forged signatures), and the relief sought.
E&E News by POLITICO (March 2026) — Confirms the suit was filed in the Supreme Court of New York and frames the alleged targeting of low-income and elderly residents. https://www.eenews.net/articles/new-york-sues-solar-company-over-alleged-fraud/
pv magazine USA (March 2026) — Trade coverage confirming the $275 million figure, the license revocation, the alleged rebrand workaround, and the injunction, restitution, and penalties sought. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/03/23/new-york-attorney-general-files-275-million-lawsuit-against-attyx-for-deceptive-solar-sales/
Minnesota Attorney General (primary, press release, March 8, 2024) — The OAG announcement that Ellison sued four major solar lenders, alleging roughly $35 million in hidden “dealer” fees on more than 5,000 systems that raised borrower costs 15–30%. Frames the case as allegations. https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Communications/2024/03/08_SolarLending.asp
pv magazine USA (April 2024) — Names the four lenders and totals (over $200M in projects, ~$35M inflated); notes the state seeks an injunction, disclosures, refunds, and penalties. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/04/26/minnesota-sues-goodleap-sunlight-mosaic-and-dividend-over-dealer-fees/
Star Tribune (Nov 2024) — Independent reporting; important for balance, it records that the lenders deny wrongdoing and say they will show compliance in court. https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-homeowners-say-they-were-hit-with-massive-hidden-fees-when-going-solar/601177876
Benesch Law — state AG enforcement summary (April 2026) — A law-firm overview confirming the Texas AG’s April 2026 initiative and civil investigative demands to solar companies, and that Florida and Connecticut brought actions in 2023 over high-pressure sales, unaffordable financing, and misleading tax-credit and timeline claims. https://www.beneschlaw.com/insight/increased-enforcement-scrutiny-on-solar-industry-targets-savings-claims/
Texas Attorney General (primary, press release) — The Texas initiative and civil investigative demands to solar companies under the state Deceptive Trade Practices Act. https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-launches-major-initiative-combat-widespread-fraud-companies-selling
CFPB issue spotlight: solar loans (primary, Aug 2024) — The CFPB finding that some solar lenders cram markup/“dealer” fees raising loan costs 30%+ above cash price and misrepresent the federal tax credit. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-report-finds-lenders-cramming-markup-fees-and-confusing-terms-into-solar-energy-loans/
Treasury / CFPB / FTC joint solar consumer protection announcement (primary, 2024) — The joint consumer advisories and interagency partnership to address unfair and deceptive residential-solar practices. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2522
2. The installer and the loan are separate (financing survives the company)
Supports the point that when the installer disappears, the loan and its servicing do not.
PV Tech (June 2025) — Reports a major solar lender’s Chapter 11 filing, illustrating how financing entities change hands while borrower obligations continue. https://www.pv-tech.org/sunnova-mosaic-file-chapter-11-bankruptcy/
Paul Hastings LLP (Oct 2025) — Confirms that after that lender’s bankruptcy, servicing transferred to another entity while more than $8 billion in loans kept being serviced — i.e., the debt did not disappear. https://www.paulhastings.com/news/paul-hastings-advises-solar-mosaic-in-chapter-11-bankruptcy-exit-and-transition-to-solar-servicing
3. Fake “settlement” pages: how they work and how to verify a real notice
Supports the section on manufactured settlement pages and how to tell a real class-action notice from a fake one.
FTC refunds database (primary, official) — The FTC’s public list of administered refunds and settlements; a real, FTC-related settlement can be confirmed here on a .gov site. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds
PACER (primary, official) — Public access to U.S. federal court records, where a real federal case number and filing can be looked up. https://pacer.uscourts.gov/
Better Business Bureau warning, as reported (April 2026) — Summarizes the BBB alert that fake class-action settlement notices are proliferating and are designed to target people who already know about a real case. https://getoutofdebt.org/243869/fake-class-action-settlement-scam-bbb-warning
AARP (Oct 2025) — Verification steps and the FTC finding that only about 4% of people who receive class-action notices file claims. https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/class-action-settlement-notice/
Class Action U (April 2026) — Consumer guidance that real actions have an official court filing and that suspected fakes should be checked against the FTC and a state AG, and reported to the FTC. https://classactionu.org/faqs/how-to-tell-if-a-class-action-is-real-or-a-scam/
Fox News, “CyberGuy” (Oct 2025) — Documents fake settlement websites built to harvest data, with tells such as mismatched domains and links leading away from official .gov pages. https://www.foxnews.com/tech/dont-fall-fake-settlement-sites-steal-your-data