Solar scams and how to avoid the current crop – Part I

Remember when scams used to be limited to letters from Nigerian Princes or dodgy Bob trying to sell you an iffy Rolex down the pub?

Things have progressed since then and with social media they can now hide in plain sight. Leveraging algorithms across multiple electronic platforms to target in on people. The other day I was on eBay looking for some camping gear to see what was about and for the next week in my social media feed I was bombarded with camping equipment ads. I also research a lot of renewable energy products including solar and those same algorithms mistake me as a potential solar consumer and cannot differentiate that I’m actually a solar provider. As such I see every single solar ad on Facebook being ran in Tassie. Over the last few months I have seen an alarming trend with 2 types of scams.

This one is the most prevalent, leveraging the fear of missing out.

Remember when we were kids and we would go to birthday party, gorge ourselves on party pies and fairy bread? Then there was the party games and a popular one was musical chairs. A ring of chairs would be assembled, the music would start we would be probably be skipping around the things back in those days. Then the music would stop and the rush would be on to grab a chair. Here’s the kicker there was always one less chair than there was kids to sit on them so someone had to miss out. Youd be standing their like a knot in a log with everyone else was sitting down stirring you up and you’d shuffle off and wait for the rest to eventually join you.

But essentially you had missed out on a limited opportunity.

There are ads right now advertising 15 test cases or battery trials needed in your area. With the spiel that this is a limited opportunity deal, with limited spots available for some “study” or “trial”. Every month there is another select trial or test case in your area.

Okay I hope everybody is sitting dow for what I’m about to reveal as it may come as a shock.

There are no test cases or trials.

It’s a marketing tool leveraging the adult’s ‘inner child’ that was standing around that ring of chairs and had missed out.

Why do this?

It creates the call to action. It’s not about what solar am I buying, do I need solar, what brands or how much? It’s about I had better signup before I miss out on this limited opportunity. Which I must reiterate once again this limited opportunity does not exist.

If 100 people rang up for this only 15 available limited opportunity, i can guarantee you 100 people would get a solar system.

Let’s change product to show how ridiculous this ploy is.

A local doctor advertises on Facebook he has bottles of penicillin for $59.99 but he only has 7 bottles left.

A. Do you need penicillin?

B. Is it even Penicillin?

C. Would this penicillin even be good for me as some people die from it?

D. Why would a Dr only have access to 7 bottles?

E. Is $59.99 even a good price for penicillin?

The whole premise does not make any sense no matter how you view. Same with solar. Do I need solar? Does my house suit solar? Is Solar the best investment i could be making my bills lower? What brands or quality would I be getting? Who is going to be installing it? What sort of after support could I expect? All these tricky questions get sidestepped by creating the false call to action. It gives the that supplier an uncontested sale where they can basically sell low quality components at elevated way above what would be the expected retail sale prices.

Click here for Solar scams and how to the current crop – Part II