"I have found Sillicon Solar an extremely knowledgeable and helpful company. We purchased 8 sets of outdoor solar lights and they have been extremely helpful with all aspects of our concerns. Talk to Matt because he goes out of his way for you and is a problem solver."

"I would never deal with this company again. The directions are minimal and tech help is non existent. They do not know their own product. They sent me the wrong controller and sensor kit and since 30 days had passed it was tough luck, your on your own. They would not help me. my system will now only work on manual until I find and buy a new controller on my own. Do not deal with them. If you need spare parts when that time comes. They probably will not know what you are talking about."

"My overall experience was positive, but not without a couple of glitches. After placing an order with Silicon Solar, I ran into a problem. The two items I ordered were not compatible, although recommended on the web site to purchase together. I immediately emailed the company. I received a form reply to expect a response. No response in two weeks. I called. My phone conversation was "painful" in that I felt I had to fight for my position and was given unnecessary roadblocks. However, after requesting a replacement pump, I was told to expect an email with an RMA. It came promptly. I returned the item. The replacement came promptly. It worked with the adapter I had ordered previously. Then I discovered that I had been billed twice for the same order. It had been a glitch on the web site that occurred on my initial order. Solar Silicon credited my account a month later with no prompting from me. I am happy with the pump and adapter. The products I ordered came promptly. The customer service still needs some improvement, but I got what I wanted."

"Sad, Sad, Sad,

Orignal order Nov 2009. System failure early 2010. Company had no record of my order. Many, many requests for tech support. Answers provided indicated that they really didn't understand their own product; I even sent a video sadly to no avail. I ordered a new front cover, including PCB for my system. Purchased "new" battery, although the original was holding it's charge. Eventually got the replacement, only after an enormous amount of emails. New front cover with PCB has never worked. Over $90 worth of international direct phone calls made, to be constantly transfered in a "que", then re-transfered to leave a "voice" message, non of which have been returned. Fish in my pond are dying, absolutely "NO" interest and support from company. Why did I buy in the first place??? About to go legal as I am "OVER IT!". Emails, phone calls, detailed problems provided!!!! All too hard for Silicon Solar. NOT GOOD ENOUGH GUYS!!!! Glenn H Mildura Victoria Australia!!"

"Pleasant sales and customer service people, but ultimately a poor experience.

I bought a solar panel and controller, but was struck that the red and black wires appeared to be mixed up - meaning, red was negative, black was positive. And, I simply couldn't get any charge even in bright sunlight.

After multiple calls, being totally wrong information like "your solar panel needs a whole day or two to "charge itself in the sun before it could produce any electricity," I finally got through to a tech rep. He confirmed there was a good chance the wires were mixed up and I should get a multimeter to determine for sure which was positive & negative. OK, so I bought from them a cheap digital multiplexer - asked for it to be sent comp because it's simply amazing to me a that store involved in electronics send wiring that's backwards (could have damaged the new batteries on my boat if I'd just hooked it up). Any case, they gave me five bucks off the multiplexer. It arrives, and the battery inside that is dead. So I have buy a new batter PLUS a narrow electrican's screwdriver so it can fit through the tiny holes to put in the slots....
The multiplexer confirms the polarity is backwards - black is positive, red negative.

Even though the sales person was very nice, no one that I talked to there seemed to get how fundamentally screwed up it is to send out a charger with the polarity mixed up--what could be more basic?

This whole mess took about three weeks to resolve. Hopefully, it work work well in my boat now.

Bottom line, shop someplace else. "

"I purchased this product to have and be installed in my pond a week after I bought it. I waited a few days and I still didn't have a tracking number on my package. I emailed them before I got any type of answer on what is going on with my order status. No where on the site did it say the product was out of stock. So, currently I'm waiting on this pump, without it I can't put fish in the pond or have a working waterfall. I was given a date of july 30th. Don't know if I can wait that long for the most important part of the pond!"

"Bought a 12V solar fountain; however when I received it the pump said 7V. I called customer service, and was told that the rep would check and call me back. 4 days later I called to see what happened, but the same rep was very short with me.I was told the picture of the pump on the website was not the right pump, and it was about 1/3 the size from what I received! She said the one I received was the correct pump, and the packer never makes a mistake.

Thinking I would need to return it, I had not checked the other packed materials until after the 2nd call. There were parts missing! At this point rather than deal with the impertenant customer service rep AND take a chance more would go wrong, I returned the item. They have yet to reimburse me AND they charged me for the return freight! #1-bad customer service = no return for many people; #2-If it's in the ad you send THAT item! Very disappointed in SILICON Solar! "

"I placed my order Jun 23, 2009 for a product SunFlow Plus Night Pack and have yet to receive it. After my 3rd phone call to Silicon to finally speak to the office manager Jen Richfield she assured me that my product was shipped out Jul 13, 2009 and will be rec'd before the end of the week. Using the tracking # given to me I keyed into the UPS.com today only to find out the order was void by the sender so I proceeded to inquire WHY? Now my concerns are rising. I would hope Silicon would be reliable for it's services or send my money back so that I can find a company that will stand behind it's services.

I've since found this website of complaints which is disturbing.

My check cleared Jun 30, 2009 and now gathering resources in order to follow through with filing a complaint with the NY Attorney General Office, my banking institute, BBB, etc. if necessary should I not receive a response from the email or a phone call I sent to Silicon Support before the end of the week.

I hope Silicon holds up to it's commitments because I would rather have a good product then have to go through all the aggravation of filing legal actions.

Catherine O'Briant"

"I placed an order in may after chatting with a sales rep regarding when the order would be fulfilled. I was told the item was in route from the supplier and I would receive it within two weeks. After a month I had received nothing. It took several communications to them to get an update. I was told it would be several weeks longer before they ship my order. They could not tell me why. This was a red flag for me so I asked to cancel the order and get a refund (they charged my credit card immediately even though they had nothing to ship, another red flag).

It has been a few weeks from when I canceled the order and I've not gotten my money back. I've sent several inquiries regarding the status of the refund and gotten no response from the company.

I would not recommend purchasing from this company due to lack of communication and their inability to deliver on their promises.

I can not comment on the quality of their products since I haven't received anything from them.

Update:
I did finally receive a refund but only after I called PayPal on the phone. When I opened the dispute the funds in question were held in escrow by PayPal but Silicon Solar misunderstood they had to approve returning the money to me. It appears they may have thought it was an automatic refund which it was not. Only after I escalated the case to PayPals customer service did someone at PayPal review the case and release the funds back to my account.

This case is now resolved and my initial review is still valid. The first delivery date for my order was missed and when I inquired about status I was give a second date which was also missed. I would strongly encourage Silicon Solar to state realistic delivery to their customers as this failed order caused me to not be able to show my product (which was to use their solar collector as a component) at a solar expo. "

"ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! I wish I had found this site before I placed my order (5 months ago). And I still don't have my product. They have given me at least 5 delivery dates, which I passed along to my client, and again...I STILL DON'T HAVE MY PRODUCT!!! I look like a total liar to my (Large and New) client and I'm not sure they will ever do business with me again. This will cost me tens of thousands of dollars in lost sales!!! @#$@#$@# Both Jen and Corey have been no help...when they tell you they will call back, THEY DON'T and when they tell you the product will be there, IT ISN'T!! It's now a running joke around the office...whenever something is late we say they "silicon solared" us. And they have 100% percent of our money. We are furious!!!!!"

"It seems I should have done my homework before ordering anything from this company. It started with the VP of Sales Matt Farrell talk to me in a condescending tone when I mentioned fraud and his company. Now it all seems to be true. They immediately billed my credit card for $5533.93 and then proceeded to string me along about when I was to actually receive the order. To this day, 6/26/2009, we are still waiting. Worse yet, when I try to call any of the phone #'s including Matt's, live tech support, PR, new sales, it all goes to voice mail. BUYER BEWARE, IF INTERESTED IN SUNMAXX GO SOMEWHERE ELSE OR FIND ANOTHER MANUFACTURER YOU WILL BE SORRY IF YOU USE SILICON SOLAR, WE ARE VERY SORRY AND ARE NOW PROCEEDING FRAUD CHARGES WITH AMERICAN EXPRESS."

"How do I explain how bad my experience was? Well, I saw a lot of bad reviews on siliconsolar before I made my purchase, but their price was just too good. I broke what I needed into two orders, one real small to test them, and then if they proved "safe" I was going to place the rest of the order.

Needless to say, it has taken 7 months, countless phone calls and emails to get my money back. They kept saying they would fix the order, but they didn't. They then said they would give me a refund, but they didn't. Finally the fraud department at my bank refunded me my $332.88. So I paid interest on $332.88 for 7 months, because they sent a partial order that I couldn't use, and never finished anything they started.

In order to give you an idea of how much crap I had to go through, I'm attaching one of the email chains that went between me and the company. If you notice, at one point I even cc'ed every email address I could find for every employee at the company just trying to get somebody to respond.

I did remove my name from the emails, that’s the only thing I changed. When you look at the dates, I want you to realize that my bank refunded me yesterday, 4-13-2009, for this purchase. After the last email from them, they were several phone calls, including one from my bank's fraud department, which at that point I was guaranteed a refund within 7 days. I see how much their guarantee was worth...
"

"Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice...
And I must be an idiot. I'm not sure if they just don't care about the smaller orders or if the entire system is filled with incompetence. I ordered from you a few years ago and had problems then. (order lost, found, lost again, shipped, item didn't work, got it to work, stopped working after a month, gave up).

I decided that it had been awhile and they were still in business, so hopefully things had improved. So I attempted (being the operative word) to place another order this week. It turned out to be an adventure in futility. The online system refused to take a credit card. I tried multiple times and multiple cards. Still refused. I called customer service and was told that they knew there was a problem and they could do the order manually. About 30minutes later and repeated attempts they thought they had the order completed and would 'watch it'.

Today I received an email noting the order was not completed. I called the phone# noted and spoke, again, to customer service. After many more attempts (and about 30 more minutes) the result is still no order.

It appears they really don't need my order after all. I will say that the people on the phone are nice, just that they can't seem to get anything completed. They don't offer any problem escalation or even any compensation for all of the time and effort required (discount, priority shipping,whatever). This seems to be either very poor customer service, training, incompetence or all of the above.

I realize that the green industry is getting a lot of attention now and they probably have a lot of other customers. But I have to believe that the individual can make a difference. I feel it my duty to warn as many as possible to avoid this site if they want to avoid a lot of time and frustration. "

"I recently purchased two Solar Fence Controllers; took all my old fencing down, put up two strands all the way around, hooked up the controllers and neither worked. There's a security key that's made to pop in and out to stop the electric current; neither controller made a connection after pulling the key. We actually tried sticking a piece of wire in between the gap; no luck. I was pretty po'd, but calmly made a call to the Bainbridge office today where I spoke w/ Corey, a female, and the only CSR manager there. I described the problem even though Corey had never seen their solar fence controller? Corey responded and told me that she would send out two new ones right after I pay shipping of MY pocket for shipping the two originals back to them. Also, Corey stated that if I wasn’t interested in them shipping out two new controllers that Silicon Solar would charge me a 25% restocking fee of the $100.00 I spent on their piece of crap products, plus shipping ($14.00). Corey wasn’t any help to me, nor did she seem to care in the least. So I decided to call SS headquarters in Ithaca hoping for better customer service …. NOT! I got a recording to leave a message. What total BS!!! The products suck eggs, the customer service suck eggs … the whole company sucks! I’m headed to the BBB and see what I can do. Total waste of time!!!!!!!


***** The batteries on the back of the panels both fell out and broke one of the cases. Poor cs, and poor product!******"

"Order an item, was told it was not in stock, asked for my money back and never received it. I called and was told it would be handled. Its March and I'm still waiting for my money back.

Answer to Silicon Solar: I called, I was told "the refund is being processed and should be sent out next week". I was told this BEFORE you asked my name and order number. I have filed a complaint with the New York Attorney General."