Hi all. Please can anyone give their personal experience with this website. Is it trustworthy and has anyone bought from there before and received all goods in working order? https://thesolarmart.co.za

This is a SCAM company/website ... read posts below - I was an idiot and got caught 🤬 (I was desperate and acted too quickly/irresponsibly after loadshedding kicked in last Friday) and ordered an additional battery for 33k (and lost the money).

Hindsight is 20/20 vision 😞

Warning signs: No phone number, no unit number on address, loads of links don't work, some content is in the wrong place, returns include gift vouchers which is not sold, only accept EFT, and if you reverse lookup the pictures, they are all generic/copied from other sites and probably more if you look closer.

I did a reverse google image lookup and found this site with the same pics: Danhofer Solar – your partner for high-quality photovoltaic systems

I have opened a case of Fraud at SAPS as well as the local banks, including their bank which is Capitec.

At this stage I am hoping I am the only chop that got caught by these SCAMMERS and want to make sure no-one else gets caught - this site needs to be shutdown, the money trail followed, and these bastards locked away for good.

Perhaps an idea is for "The Power Forum" to start a page of Solar/Power companies caught out scamming people, Companies with Poor ratings etc, as a service to its members ... just an idea 🙂

 

Edited February 7, 20251 yr by Marcodp
Work in progress

Hi Guys. Yes I am also very much interested in knowing the experience of others, that have purchased from Solar Mart.

Address is a serviced office... no telephone number???

If prices are too good to be true then maybe they are.

R3199.00 for a 410w Canadian solar panel.... they are not going to scam anybody with those prices.

Hi , 

That website is an SCAM . 

I tried to go to there office ...... but what did i find . nothing 

see the mails

---- 

Hi Hein

Unfortunately, we are an online-based store; hence, this would not be possible.

You are however welcome to come by and verify that we are legit our order process unfortunately remains the same.

Kind Regards,

-----

I would also like to know. I got scammed a month ago by a "fly by night" and It seems that there are more scammers than actual businesses

4 hours ago, stefan44 said:

R3199.00 for a 410w Canadian solar panel.... they are not going to scam anybody with those prices.

If you buy at that price, even if they are totally honest and deliver as promised, you were robbed.

Hello all,

I initially posted some feedback (above) and then edited my feedback to "interesting" after I got a threatening email from them to take things further (see pic below) - read it ("persuade further" 🤐)... and then updated again with a summary after posting the below.

In summary - as it stands today (06/02), it looks like my money is gone - I have opened a criminal case of fraud against this company and reported them to their bank.

Read my experience and make your own mind up.

PS: Herewith some initial warning signs that I missed: No phone Number, no unit number shown on their address and they only accept EFT...oh and they only have 1 unit left (isn't this always the case to hook you). I also called the Infinity Business Park property administrators who did not know of this company.

Here is my experience - They are excellent responding to the chat on their website as well as by email. Thier site looks good, and their prices look even better than most (maybe this is also a warning sign) ... in short everything looks legit. You can create an account, log in and track your orders etc. In my experience, there is nothing that makes one feel there is something wrong.

After chatting to them on their website (they were very responsive) I placed my order (I have attached my chat as reference) - everything sounded great.

After I placed my order, their response was excellent, an account was created for me, I got an invoice, and I got an email advising me of EFT details - I was advised that the order is on hold until payment had been received. The email correspondence looks excellent, wording and language is good all very professional.

I paid immediately by EFT and advised them I had done so - they advised that they ship the goods once the funds reflect into their account.

all good so far .... so, I thought 😞

As my order was placed on Saturday and I belong to another Bank, I did not expect the funds to reflect on Monday, so I let Monday pass. On Tuesday morning I emailed them and asked for an update where they responded that the money had not yet reflected into their account. 

This seemed strange so I contacted my bank (Nedbank) who advised that Capitec had received the funds on Monday already and sent me a bank PoP which I then forwarded to them and asked for an update.

They responded (relatively quickly) and advised that they would send this to their admin dept to check.

then silence for the rest of the day ...

On Wednesday morning I sent a follow-up email advising that since they had received the funds on Monday, if they did not ship the goods, they need to cancel my order and refund me (by this stage I was already very anxious) 

Their response was professional ...but look at it and you will see its rubbish - I attached it below for all to see (honestly people must think everyone is stupid) - they first tell me the money was returned and shows on their bank statement...... then later they say it was a normal Capitec branch code and not a Business branch code that was used (really??) - and then tell me to ask the bank to recall it (I thought is was already returned) .... look at the feedback and make up your own mind.

It is now Thursday, and I have no goods and no money and no further feedback - the bank believes that there is little chance of recovering the funds.

Looking at the above and the pics below - will you buy from this company?

Clearly, the stupid person here is me - I just got scammed for R33k - I am beyond pissed off

 

Note: If anything changes - If I get my order or I get my money back, I will update this post... until then, the above is the current status!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 20251 yr by Marcodp
updated

WILL BE PERSUADED FURTHER...

In other words "please note making defamatory claims against our company will be convinced further"

 

 

Check out the response I just got from them now - probably after they saw my post above.

Their SCAM is obvious for all to see ... most certainly a fraudulent company/website..... it needs to be shut down! 

Edited February 7, 20251 yr by Marcodp

Do a google search there are some people on facebook complaining as well.

Another solar scam company to add to the blacklist of crooks!

Hi all, my dad was scammed out of R37 000 for a battery from ‘The Solar Mart.’ They are definitely a scam company. We have also logged a fraud case with SAPS and our banks are investigating. Please note that they appear to be using multiple bank accounts including Capitec, Nedbank and Absa bank. I have also reported their website to SAFPS. 
 

I really hope we can spread the news far and wide so that this website can be taken down and no more people will be scammed from their hard earned money.   

The Solar industry is just as susceptible to fraud as is any other industry - know how these guys operate:

Firstly, this website is hosted by Cloudfare who hide behind company disclaimers, and the site owners/registers are almost always Gmail accounts.

In essence you can report them (i.e. Cloudfare & gmail), but chances are not a lot will happen - if you do by chance get it right these guys just establish new sites and new email accounts and continue operating.

When payments are made, the second the funds hit their bank account the money is moved - this makes recovery nearly impossible (so the funds are effectively gone).

When their accounts are frozen (reports of fraud), the accounts are just abandoned and new accounts opened.

Upside - SA banks are governed by regulations managed by the Prudential Authority (SARB) - some of the regulations include FICA and KYC (Know Your Customer) amongst others:

Banks are obliged to:

* FICA all clients
* Complete Anti-money laundering checks
* Complete KYC (Know your client) and have the details on hand, including:
    * A valid SA id
    * Proof of Address
    * Income Tax (SARS)
    * Bank Statement
    * Tax clearance certificate (if offshore)
    * Proof of authority (if acting on behalf of someone)

They are also obliged to:

* Do ongoing monitoring
* Understand their client's business structures
* Understand their client's source of income/wealth
 

google the above to check ...

They at minimum must have their clients ID(s) and the details of the bank account owners and should provide these to SAPS.

Follow the money and you will find the individuals responsible - from a money perspective, as much as we would all like to recover our cash, in most instances you will need to write this off against a hard lesson / school fees 😞 - avoid cheap prices and buy products from companies you know as legit (even if more expensive).

 

Fica is a joke  - ask any Pakistani cell repair shop for a pre-registered sim card, they always have. The banks (all of them) are too lazy to follow up on scams!!

They are scammers - I also bought a battery from them and while they were fast to respond initially, they went quiet and ignored me. I have called Capitec to let them know what these guys are involved in as well. 

They confirmed that they got my money and told me they would send it on Monday afternoon (last week) and now it says "trash". 

Edited February 10, 20251 yr by Upetr

The website has been taken down this week:

There is a company in Europe all of these site use to register 1API. Solarmart was also registered with this company about 5 months ago. See this thread:

 

I was doing due diligence on solarshopza.com ( base in Kuruman ??? ) after placing an order for a R37k battery. I got excellent responses from sales, however when I placed the order on the website I got an auto response from [email protected] confirming the order....I think they slipped up and needless to say I wont be doing the EFT. thank you for the warnings !

Also been scammed by these low life people middle January - R12000. The Solar mart website looked very legit and all their communication. Opened cases at the banks and SAPS, never heard a word ever since. Even tried to warn people on Hellopeter but they keep removing my posts, seems the word "scam" is not allowed there.

The Solarshopza is a scam website. If anyone has a pending SAPS case, let me know so I can add my details to the case and hopefully catch these people.