Greti Croft was sold by SUNNANO a 324,000.00 Solar installation , for a senior center to be installed by October 11th2009 Fair Oak, California

First, we are very sorry for Greti's adverse experience with the company. We were new to the business and from the beginning we did not do a good job. There were delays and many problems and in general we failed to live up to her expectations. However, her characterization of what happened is not fair or accurate and is libelous. I intend to file a lawsuit for libel.

Our general position is that we are still owed approximately $70,000 on this job which the client refuses to pay. This dispute became heated when we sent Greti a demand for payment. Although Ms. Croft laments her large expenditure she fails to mention that this system was paid for by a government grant that we obtained on her behalf and that she was fully reimbursed for her expenditures. She made a significant profit.

In August of 2009 Ms. Croft agreed to purchase a $313,000 solar energy system from Sun Nano, a State of California CSI registered solar retailer. Sun Nano secured more than $332,000 in government grants for Ms. Croft which covered the costs of her system. In September of 2009 we submitted a grant request to the State of California to receive government funding on the basis of an existing grant program for low income housing. In October of 2009 we obtained written approval from the State of California stating that it had reserved $162,000 in grant money for Ms. Croft through its MASH Track 1 Program.

As of today the solar installation has been completed and to my knowledge Ms. Croft received her track 1 funding. Ms. Croft was also guaranteed to receive a $90,000 grant from the U.S. Dept of Treasury and very likely we believe an additional grant of $50,000 from MASH Track 2 funding that we applied for her behalf. Our proposal to Ms. Croft, to resolve existing contract disputes, has been to mutually agree to enter into binding arbitration with a State of California certified arbitrator. We feel this was a very fair fair proposal.

On December 16th, 2009, a day after receiving our demand for payment, Ms. Croft issued a complaint to the D.A.'s dispute resolution department in regard to the company's salesman, and myself. She made a number of objections to a letter provided to her by the company and representations made by a sales person. I have reviewed the letter sent to her and it is accurate. Her attestations to the contrary are untrue and put her at legal risk for libel. It states among other things that Sun Nano is new to business.

We tried our best, we provided a good team of workers, and the team successfully installed the system. Ms. Croft also objected with a handwritten note to references to the installer and projects that he worked on. Ms. Croft was told that Sun Nano had not performed these projects but that the installer had worked on them. The letter sent to her only indicated that the installer had been a foreman for Sun Edison and that he possessed experience installing big solar projects such as Kohl's in Temecula and Torrence, and CSU Chico. This is entirely accurate. Mr. Hernandez, who installed Ms. Croft's system, has performed a great number of large installations including the ones listed in the letter to her. The letter does not state or imply that Sun Nano performed these installations, only that the Mr. Hernandez did so. Mr. Hernandez did an excellent job installing the system and the electricians that Ms. Croft interviewed to turn the system on noted how excellent his work was.

There were a couple other disputes but likewise I reviewed the letter and feel that it is accurate and correct. Ms. Croft also provided the D.A. the first page of her written contract with Sun Nano, but she failed to provide the remaining three pages which outline her obligations and provided in greater detail the scope of services and the equipment to be delivered. Ms. Croft did not mention that she refuses to make a final payment and the she refuses to reimburse Sun Nano for more than $10,000 in permits and associated fees which are her contractual responsibility. In respect to the work. Sun Nano sold Ms. Croft solar equipment and provided a licensed contractor to perform the installation.

At all times the work was performed by a properly licensed contractor. We initially hired two contractors to perform the work. The lead contractor proved to be too slow in Ms. Croft's opinion in filling out paperwork for permits, so he was terminated before the work started and we hired another contractor Ms. Croft preferred and recommended to act as the lead. Ms. Croft signed an addendum to the contract identifying and agreeing to the new contractor by name and license number. This contractor completed the work and fully installed the system. The workers we provided to work under him were extremely experienced in solar installation and had done many large jobs throughout the State of California so the contractor's experience was irrelevant.

Although relations were always strained, conflict between the parties grew in mid November when I called Ms. Croft, to inform her, that my three year old daughter who has cancer was in the emergency room and may not survive. I informed her that Mr. Pruett would therefore be taking the lead that day. Ms. Croft responded that she did not care about my daughter's cancer or condition, that it had nothing to do with the project, and that she expected me to be on the job that day. This I thought was heartless and unprofessional, and a black mark in front of God.

Our personnel spent three months installing the 256 panel system and the company spent approximately $295,000 to complete the project, though we only received $262,000 from Ms. Croft. We paid for all of the solar panels, inverters, wiring, conduit, mounts, framing, permits, many other various accessories and materials, and more than a month of hotel stay to keep a team of four workers on the job. Everything was installed correctly except that the workers would not make the final plug in between the solar panels and the inverters without the aid of an electrician. Inverters accept electricity from solar panels and invert the D.C. electrcity to A.C. electrcity so it can be safely fed into the power grid.

After interviewing several local electricians, we selected an electrician to complete what we estimated to be several hours of work remaining to take the system live. The client decided however to hire--against our strenuous objections--her own electrician. The electrician Ms. Croft hired, proposed a ludicrous price of $24,000 to perform a work statement that we knew was in complete error. Her electrician proposed wiring more than 30 local power meters on the site to the inverters, which would have violated the terms of her government grants, which required that the wires instead be directed into one special meter provided by Southern California Edison. We received four quotes from other electricians all around $3,000 for the remaining work and we confirmed with a master electrician that the price being quoted by her electrician was outrageous. Both our sales agent and myself sent written objections opposing this decision demanding that the contract be honored and that Sun Nano be permitted to chose the electrician to plug the system in. Ms. Croft, angered that we would not agree to hire her third party electrician, cut off all communications and would not return my phone calls. Her electrician subsequently plugged the system in against our objections. Our assessment had been correct, and had we not compelled her electrician to alter his work statement, Ms. Croft would have lost all of her grants. Our letters to Ms. Croft made clear that we were willing to pay for any incidental labor or work that needed to be performed by the contractor to complete concrete work or any thing else required to make the final plug in. There were other disputes.

Ms. Croft alleges that Sun Nano was only permitted to charge 10% down for its services but that it charged more. Her understanding of the law is incorrect. As a registered retailer of equipment, it is State of California Law that Sun Nano is permitted to charge for equipment and materials in full before they are delivered. All equipment and materials that were paid for were delivered to Ms. Croft, as per the contract. There were no missing parts or pieces and everything was properly installed by a licensed contractor. Sun Nano advanced all of the money to pay the contractor and laborers, but the client has yet to repay Sun Nano for these expenses. The project, as was specified in the contract, was broken up into 4 distinct installation phases. In each phase the equipment and labor was paid for in full before the next phase began. Ms. Croft paid originally $80,000 and Sun Nano immediately delivered the first contractually required 75 solar panels to the work site. To speed the process up Ms. Croft recommended and voluntarily agreed to pay another $162,000 so that all of the phases could be completed at the same time. Our contract did not require this, and our management did not ask for this.

Regardless, Sun Nano delivered and installed all equipment specified in the contract, it met its contractual requirements. Any failure to optimize the panels is Greti's fault for cutting off communications. We understand that this was a large expenditure for Ms. Croft and that as such it was bound to cause her stress when the work was not performed to her standards. We did our best, we delivered the goods and installed the system, and despite the initial challenges and disputes we hope that the end product is one that Ms. Croft will benefit from and enjoy. We deeply apologize for our initial delay and inexperienced approach and we regret our general performance on this task. Although Sun Nano is no longer an operational company, due to our losses on this project, our staff takes serious its commitment to our clients' happiness and we are very sorry for Ms. Croft's disappointment.

August 2009 I was contacted by Bud Pruett Newburry Park to buy a 247 panel Solar System in a 38 unit senior complex for 323,689.00. We would recieve rebates fron SCE Mash 1, Mash2 and a tax refund. These rebates were assured to me. Our seniors are mostly low income and struggle even to buy their medication. No electric bill would help them a lot. The impact on the planet was another big plus. A win/win situation.

The system was to be installed by October 11th. I was assured of my rebates right away. I used a 250,000.00 creditline and sent Sunnano 267,689.00. The remaining 56,000.00 were to be payed 14 days after completion of the system.

I got a phonecall on October 5th that nothing had been done. I called Bud Pruitt, who blamed the City of Simi for the delay. Also he stated the city required us to now use also the roofs of the carports for the panel and were holding the permit. Now I know 246 Panels could NOT fit on the roof which they should have known before they started the job.

October 15th I called Bud Pruitt, the installation was to begin on October 20th. No sign.. I called and called no answer , in an email he said he was sick and call me when he got out from the Doctor.

No call. I contacted the City of Simi ,who cares greatly for their seniors and always has been helpful. According to them NO PERMIT had ever been applied for.

October 21st I got a call from a Jack Warren, the contractor. He had been hired from Craigslist the 12th of October. He was paid 1000.00 by Paypal since it now appears that Matthew Sarad/Sunnanosys have not legitimate bank account.

October 22nd Matthew Sarad the President of Sunnano called saying Bud Pruett had "dropped the ball" and that he would come from Sacramento and fix everything. He also felt Jack was not comunicating with him or some other excuse.

The City of Simi called me Friday 10/23rd that a permitt had been pulled. To speed up the installation process I suggested to hire Wayne Schaffer to help Jack Warren to finish faster. I knew W. Schaffer's work. Matthew Sarad insisted on letting Jack Warren go. Wayne Schaffer had never done a solar installation.

On Monday Schaffer and Matt went to the City for plans, Schaffer had to redraw everything. Two installers were also hired out of Craigslist. They had done big solar installation but never without a SOLAR Plan nor without supervision. I was working also with the city, Schaffer and Matthew Sarad. I asked where his lightmeasure meter was to see which carporches were the best. He answered they had an old one in Sacramento.

When I asked for a solar plan, Matthew Sarad told me he knew everything about Solar and that he did not need one. I realized soon that we needed to learn all we could since the city required a solar plan in order to process our rebates. The invertors were to be arriving on Friday early in November but I wanted to confirm this so I asked for their telephone number from Matthew Sarad. When I spoke with the inverter salesman, he said "the invertors would be leaving the factory on Decembefr 15th".

Matthew Sarad was sorry for his "mistake". I called all over to find a different invertor vendor because mid-December would delay the project even longer. I did find another inverter vendor but they would not sell them to Sunnano because he had no licence.

This is a critical point: Matthew Sarad, Bud Pruit both of Sun Nanosys sold a 300,000 dollar solar instalation stating that they had done other large solar projects but after he took payment of some 280,000 dollars, it then comes to light that they have never done a large solar installation and that they had no license to perform such work.

November 19th Matthew Sarad told Southern California Edison (power company) that he would bring in the 702.00 to their office in Sacramento in order to process the installation. He did not by that night, so I was asked to do this to insure fast completion. I brought the money to their office the next day.

Matthew Sarad was not reachable by phone, his 800 number nor did he respond to the email. The 20th was the date he set to hire an electrician. Without being able to contact Matthew Sarad or Bud Pruit or anyone at sun nanosys, we hired RR Electric ,who came highly recommended. As the system was done without a Solarplan I was familiar with Schaffer's quality of work and wanted assurance that the best do the Electric finishing. M.Sarad never answered RR Electric's calls or the bid.

The week of November 14th he did pay Schaffer late, who was charging all the material on his own creditcard. He payed him on the 20th partly and asking me to pay the rest. He now wanted me to pay for the city permits that he said were many thousand dollars.

Bud Pruett reappeared about this time telling me to compromise ,he agreed a contart was a contract. Matthew Sarad WAS NOT A BAD GUY, he admitted having been misled, about Sunnanos work - this amounts to fraud. If I had known that they had little to no experience, I obviously would not have hired them. He had not known that they had not done Kohl stores in spite of his previous assurance that they had done large scale solar projects.

Regarding the accounting: I had been there from October 15th and have kept track of the all expenses. By November 20th Sunanos expenses were 225,078. We just got a call that the wind and load engineer are still owed 1950.00. So expenses are 223,078. Still about 58,000.00 left over from our deposit, this is if Bud Pruett got 30,000.00 for selling this project on Sunnano's experience, which turned out to be a lie. Bud also states in his e-mail M. Sarad' 's accounting is unintentionally fraudulent in spite of his errors being thousands of dollars off in favor of his bottom line.

Matthew Sarad wanted Wayne Schaffer to JUST CONNECT the electrical, according to him 1/2 days work. RR Electric has been there over a week with often 4 workers they drove to L.A. to pick up a 5 foot panel that had to be installed. Matthew Sarad had no idea of this, RR Electric hired an electrical engineer to calculate the System.

When I asked Matthew Sarad for references, he provided the following:

A.: King-Solarman as a partner. In his email to me Mr.Chung states he sold Matthew Sarad 246 panel one time but was no partner.

B.: Garner Energie Solution: Mr. Needham emailed me also he is not a partner of Sunnano

C.: Joseph Walker: He promised he would call me back, but never did.

Lies, misleadings, fraud, incompetance, inability to do the job, abuse of the workers for not paying them in a timely manner or at all, abuse of seniors who are most vulnarable, selling contracts without licence, an more lies all sum up my experience with Matthew Sarad and Sunnanosys. Matthew Sarad went so far as to use his 3 year old daughter stating that she had "terminal cancer" as a reason for his not returning our calls, then retracted that story saying that she was feeling better.

Where are the 20 employees to assist him that he and Bud promised? He has done huge mental and financial damage to me and my business. I wish I had taken the time to google Matthew Sarad and Sun Nanosys before I sent them payment to install this solar system. We will finish the project with Schaffer, RR Electric, the help of SCE, the city of Simi in spite of Sun Nano's involvement. 

This project has been months of frustration dealing with a deceptive and dishonest Matthew Sarad and his fraudulent company. It's too late for me but I will do everything I can to educate the public about these con artists so this does not happen to anyone else. Matthew Sarad must be stopped. I will do my part to make this happen. There are laws to protect the consumer from such fraud and I am in the process of pursuing every one of them.

December 19th 2009: Matthew Sarad's website for his solar company Sun Nano (www.sunnanosys.com) states the following: "Sun Nano has gone out of business due to the difficulties of the current economic environment. The company plans to file for bankruptcy."