New allegations filed against Smart Green Solar by RI AG’s office

PROVIDENCE – The office of Attorney General Peter Neronha has filed new allegations of deceptive sales practices against Smart Green Solar, a Providence-based installer of residential solar panels. 

The new allegations contained in a motion that Neronha’s office filed Thursday in Providence Superior Court follow an initial complaint made against Smart Green Solar and its CEO Jasjit Gotra this past summer. Along with Gotra, Smart Green executives Christopher Schiavone and George Nixon are named in the new motion. 

“In response to our suit against Smart Green Solar in June, the Office received an influx of new information from employees and consumers; information which supported and built upon our allegations,” Neronha said in a statement. “Simply put, we continue to believe that the defendants deceived and took financial advantage of Rhode Islanders who wanted to support our state’s clean energy transition.” 

What the AG’s office alleges

The Attorney General’s office alleges that Smart Green Solar withheld pricing information from customers, dissuaded customers from certain government incentives because they would have delayed payments to the company, and deceived customers by offering $1,000 “sign-up bonuses” and then raising the costs of solar installations to pay for the bonuses. 

The original complaint alleged that Smart Green Solar violated the Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practice Act by misleading customers about financing structures, eligibility for tax credits and electricity savings.  

In one instance, according to the complaint, the company charged a visually-impaired person for a system with 33 solar panels but then installed only 21 panels on the customer’s roof. The Attorney General’s office said only once it intervened did Smart Green Solar notify the customer of the discrepancy. 

CEO: Case is based on small number of complaints

Gotra said in an interview that all the panels couldn’t be installed because of constraints with the customer’s roof. He also said that the customer’s account was still open when the Attorney General’s office got involved and that the company was already in the process of making repayment. 

He said that the court case is based on a handful of complaints among thousands of installations. He said that Neronha has defamed his company and employees and that he’s been forced to lay off workers because Smart Green Solar has lost business. 

“This is a political agenda for his self-serving needs,” Gotra said of Neronha. 

The Attorney General’s office declined to respond specifically to Gotra’s comments, emphasizing instead its commitment to consumer protection. 

Gotra has made his feelings about the Attorney General known previously, going so far as creating the website fireneronha.org. 

In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission charged Gotra and a separate company he headed with illegal telemarketing and illegally obtaining consumer credit reports. That case was resolved two years later when a federal court imposed a $9.85 million civil penalty, of which Gotra was ordered to pay $88,000 because of limited financial resources. 

That case stemmed from an earlier complaint settled in a 2014 court order that Gotra’s company was alleged to have violated.