Pink Energy CEO sits down for interview amid customer complaints, answers questions about past failed business

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Pink Energy, formerly known as Power Home Solar, is facing hundreds of complaints and lawsuits from customers in North Carolina and across the country. A new WBTV Investigation shows this is not the first time the CEO of the North Carolina-based company has faced pressure because of his company’s tactics.

Pink Energy CEO Jayson Waller agreed to an interview with WBTV to lament that Pink Energy CEO Jayson most of the problems at his company aren’t his fault but caused by another company that supplies their batteries.

But it wasn’t difficult for WBTV to find examples of Pink Energy project problems that had nothing to do with the battery backup system.

“Now that I have a system and still paying on it, it’s not really saving me any money,” Brian Greene told WBTV

Greene got the panels when Pink Energy was still Power Home Solar and he saved everything from the sales representative who sold him on buying the $21,000 system. Including a handwritten note from the rep that laid out the costs.

The note shows the sales rep calculated Greene would spend only $121 on monthly payments for his Duke power bill and solar system loan combined.

Greene showed WBTV current power bills and monthly solar loan payments that are upwards of $250 combined.

“Have we had knucklehead sales reps, do their own thing? And we’ve terminated those that we found,” Pink Energy CEO Jayson Waller told WBTV in an interview.

Waller agreed to an interview with WBTV so we could ask him the questions we’re hearing from viewers like Greene and Alexander Peets, who WBTV interviewed for a previous story about the myriad of installation problems he’s had with Pink Energy. Both of them say they haven’t received what they were promised.

“You mentioned knucklehead installers, knucklehead sales, ultimately though does this not fall back to your responsibility as head of this company?” a WBTV reporter asked Waller.

“Well, when we hire people, they interview well, they trained well, and then, unfortunately, sometimes people do the wrong thing,” Waller said.

But Waller says his biggest gripe is with the company supplying the battery backups, called Generac. In a lawsuit filed against Generac, Pink Energy claims Generac batteries supplied for their projects have a defective part the company has failed to fix and is causing the Pink Energy solar systems to shut down.

“It’s making customers assume they’re getting something that’s not performing because it’s actually shut off,” Waller said.

“If it is a problem after installation, are you saying it is purely a Generac problem?” a WBTV reporter asked Waller.

“I’m saying if it’s a performance issue, with it performing after installation, it’s on Generac,” Waller said.

But Brian Greene doesn’t have a Generac for the solar panels that he bought with his system in 2017.

In an email statement, a spokesperson for Generac told WBTV Generac customers are experiencing issues with a particular component of their battery, “especially when product installation guidelines have not been followed, as appears to be the case with some Pink Energy Installations.”

“By their inflammatory public statements and the lawsuit, we believe Pink Energy may be hoping to distract customers from the many complaints and allegations that reportedly have been leveled against them,” the Generac spokesperson wrote.

WBTV dug back even further into Waller’s history and found another one of his companies that faced accusations of bad behavior in its sales tactics, called ISI Alarms, based in Mooresville.

ISI Alarms and Waller faced more than a dozen lawsuits from 2012-2014 accusing them of violating the Telephone Consumers Protection Act by “spoofing” numbers and not identifying the company responsible for the calls. Many of those lawsuits were ultimately settled.

State records show the North Carolina Department of Revenue suspended ISI Alarms in 2011.

“If I’m a consumer, though, right now, for Pink Energy or for Power Home Solar, and I were to look into the history of ISI Alarms, why would I not think that this falls back to you specifically?” a WBTV reporter asked Waller.

“Well, again, we’re talking about victims here, about the Generac issue that, the ISI Alarms was a telemarketing issue, not a sales practice issue,” Waller said.

“But and you know, I’ve had several businesses throughout my life, and build them up this (Pink Energy) is my baby.”

“Generac is the problem here, Generac is the one who misled,” Waller said.

Greene had a one word response for Waller’s claim.

“Bull,” Greene said.

“You can’t blame a battery company for your whole system failure.”

Pink Energy also laid off more than 500 employees this week according to their own press release.

A letter sent from Pink to the North Carolina Department of Commerce also notified that their Concord office was shutting down permanently. The letter blamed an “unanticipated economic downturn” as the reason and made no mention of Generac.

WBTV is already hearing from some former employees and if you’re a customer or formerly employed by Pink you can contact WBTV by emailing investigates@wbtv.com.

Also Read: Pink Energy CEO sits down for interview amid customer complaints, answers questions about past failed business

Copyright 2022 WBTV. All rights reserved.