Local company pledges to step in, fix homeowner’s solar system for free after News 4 story

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A local solar energy company is stepping in to help a homeowner after seeing a News 4 story last week about the homeowner’s year-long battle with a different company that stopped answering his calls.

Last week, News 4 reported Oklahoma City homeowner Ryan Jacob hadn’t heard from Solergy, LLC since the company installed solar panels on his house in April 2023.

Despite the system not being hooked up or usable, Solergy, LLC submitted seemingly forged approval letters to Jacob’s finance company, leading Jacob to start receiving monthly bills for the non-functional system last July.

“It's just beyond ridiculous at this point,” Jacob told News 4 last week. “It’s 155 bucks a month that we're paying right now.”

Jacob said after the story aired, he got a Facebook message from a man named Brett Will, inquiring about News 4’s story.

“He said, hey, I'm not sure if this is you, but if it is, we'd like to have a conversation,” Jacob  said.

As it turns out, Will is the owner of Oklahoma City-based Tru-Fuse Solar. He told Jacob he saw News 4’s story and wanted to help.

“I just saw the need,” Will said. “He needed help and I knew we could help him.”

Will said he wants do whatever he needs to get Jacob’s system working, at no charge.

“It’s just really a blessing that someone would do that,” Jacob said. “They're going to come out tomorrow. Actually, he's bringing his team of experts, his installer. He actually is an electrical contractor as well.”

For Will, any financial hit he’ll take for the free work is worth it, if it means defending his industry’s reputation.

“We're an Oklahoma based company. We believe in solar,” Will said. “We're here for Oklahoma and he's Oklahoma. He needs help. And I know we can go in and do the job for him… And I just want people to know there is good solar companies out there and we're one of them.”

There’s another company looking to defend the solar industry’s reputation as well.

That company is McAllen, Texas-based Solergy Renewable Energy Solutions.

Jacob's story was not the first News 4 has done about Solergy, LLC. In fact, News 4 has documented numerous cases of homeowners being abandoned by Solergy, LLC since 2021.

While its bears an almost identical name, the Texas-based Solergy Renewable Energy Solutions is a totally different company from the Solergy, LLC appearing in those stories.

The owners of Solergy Renewable Energy Solutions say not everyone has been able to make the distinction between the two companies, and they often receive phone calls from upset Solergy, LLC customers.

They also say the confusion has caused them to receive negative online reviews.

“It definitely does affect the ratings,” said Frank Shayegan, owner of McAllen, Texas-based Solergy Renewable Energy Solutions. “By the time you get ahold of Google and other entities to remove it, it takes days, so there’s some negativity on social media for us.”

Shayegan said his company actually owns the legal rights to the name “Solergy,” and has tried to reach out to the man who runs Solergy, LLC, but never gets an answer.

“The phone number [Solergy, LLC] had listed on social media, internet… no one would answer the call,” Shayegan said. “We even went to lawyers up there, tried to serve him some papers legally to stop using the name. They couldn’t even serve the papers to him because the address he used doesn’t even exist.”