Solar company cancels $97k debt for Garland woman after CBS News Texas reporting
The CBS News Texas I-Team has been looking into complaints about the solar panel industry for the past several months. Read our latest story here.
GARLAND — A lien filed against a Garland homeowner for $97,000 worth of solar panels she says she never purchased has been canceled, following reporting by CBS News Texas.
For weeks, Kim Kromdyk says she's had "horrible stress and anxiety" trying to resolve the situation.
She says the only thing she ever signed off on was a credit check to find out how much solar panels would cost her, but didn't end up actually buying any.
About a year later, though, she found a company called Solar Mosaic claiming that she did. It had placed a lien on her home and started billing her $368 a month.
"I wanted to cry," she said.
CBS News Texas discovered a pattern of complaints from homeowners across the country who say Mosaic is trying to collect on loans for solar panels they don't own. At the company's headquarters in Oakland, California, more than 100 people protested, claiming they too were taken advantage of.
In each case, the loans appear to have been arranged by third-party installation companies, who in exchange collected five-figure payments.
The problem, homeowners say, is Mosaic never checked with them to make sure they knew anything about it, or that they ever received the solar panels the loans were supposedly for.
Mosaic did not agree to an interview or answer questions from CBS News Texas about the larger pattern of problems we found. But the company did email us a statement that read, in part:
"Mosaic takes its relationship with borrowers seriously. We strive to create a positive customer experience for every homeowner who chooses Mosaic to finance their sustainable home improvements."
When we asked about Kromdyk specifically, Mosaic said it had canceled the loan. CBS News Texas found Mosaic did, in fact, remove the lien on Kromdyk's property and informed her.
"I just jumped up and went woo-hoo!" she said. "If CBS hadn't come in and, you know, kind of held them to the fire, I'd still be fighting this. And I know there are so many other people out there who are in my boat. I'm just so glad I'm out from underneath it."