Solar scams and red flags
Outright fraud is rarer than the internet suggests. What is common is the grey zone — real companies, real panels, and a sales process built on figures nobody can check. The red flags below are mostly about verifiability, because that is what separates a hard sell from a scam.
The common thread is not dishonesty. It is unverifiability.
Most solar problems are not fraud. They are a real installation sold on a savings figure with no stated assumptions, by a company you cannot easily identify, under time pressure that prevents comparison.
So the useful test is not “does this feel like a scam?” It is: can I check this, and can I check it tomorrow rather than now?
The red flags that matter
Ordered roughly by how reliably they predict trouble.
A number you cannot check. A savings or generation figure with no orientation, pitch, kWh/kWp or shade factor behind it. Everything on this site about what a quote must contain exists because a checkable figure and an unchecked one look identical on a brochure.
Pressure to sign today. A discount that expires with the visit. There is no legitimate offer that cannot survive a week.
Refusal to leave a written quotation. No honest reason exists for this.
Vagueness about who you are contracting with. Ask for the legal entity and its company number. Hesitation here is significant, because everything else — certifications, section 75, your warranty — attaches to that entity.
Implied government backing. Nobody from a government scheme knocks on doors about solar. Under the DMCCA 2024, misleading a consumer about a trader’s status or approval is capable of being a misleading action — see mis-selling.
A large deposit, paid in a way with no protection. Cash or bank transfer removes both section 75 and chargeback in one step.
No cancellation information. On a doorstep sale this is not merely poor practice — it is a criminal offence under regulation 19, and it extends your cancellation right by up to twelve months.
A “survey” that arrives with a contract. Read anything you are asked to sign, particularly a request to begin work during the cancellation period.
Claims about your neighbours. “We’re doing three houses on this street.” Ask which, then ask them.
A price that only works with finance. Finance is legitimate and can be advantageous. A price that changes depending on whether you take it is a different thing.
Actual fraud, as opposed to hard selling
Less common, more serious, and worth recognising separately:
Deposit taken, nothing delivered. The company is uncontactable afterwards. Card protections are your route.
Impersonation of a certification body, a scheme, or an established installer. Verify through the register rather than through a number the caller gives you.
Work never notified. A system installed with no building regulations notification, no DNO notification, and no MCS certificate is not merely bad practice — you are left with unregulated work on your property and no export payments.
Equipment substitution. Different modules or inverter from those quoted. This is why the datasheets matter and why serial numbers at handover are worth photographing.
Phantom warranties. A workmanship warranty from a company incorporated months ago, with no insurance-backed guarantee behind it, is a promise with nothing behind it.
The checks that defeat almost all of it
None of these takes long, and together they remove most of the risk:
- Never sign on the day. Almost every pattern above depends on you doing so.
- Get the legal entity and company number, and check Companies House.
- Verify certifications on the register, not from the brochure.
- Insist on a written quotation with the assumptions stated.
- Pay part of any deposit by credit card, bringing section 75 into play at no cost.
- Get two more quotes and normalise them.
- Check the implied kWh/kWp against our published dataset. Above ~1,050 is above anything the UK achieves at 35° south.
Almost every solar sales problem eventually reduces to a generation or savings figure that was never achievable.
That is checkable arithmetic, and we publish the data specifically so it can be checked before signing rather than argued about afterwards. It is the single most effective thing on this list, and it takes one division.
If you have already paid
Check whether the cancellation period is still running. Fourteen days normally — but if you were never given the required information it may run for twelve months and fourteen days.
Check how you paid. Credit card or point-of-sale finance brings section 75 into play, and the lender’s liability is joint and several, so it does not depend on the trader still existing. Debit card may allow chargeback, which is time-limited.
Stop further payments and take advice before paying anything more.
Gather everything — contract, sales material, correspondence, photographs, and anything you were shown but not given.
Report it. Trading standards through Citizens Advice for the regulatory side; Action Fraud if money has been taken fraudulently. Neither recovers your money directly, and both matter for enforcement.
If work was done, get an independent inspection before deciding what to claim — see proving underperformance.
And a word against paranoia
Most UK solar installers are ordinary businesses doing competent work. Treating every salesperson as a fraudster is both unpleasant and unhelpful, and it does not protect you — because the risk that actually materialises is usually a real installation with an unrealistic estimate.
The checks above are not accusations. They are the things a good installer will answer without difficulty, which is precisely why they discriminate.
Sources
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Part 4 Chapter 1
- The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, regulation 19
- Consumer Credit Act 1974, section 75
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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