A few weeks ago we had the annual lightbulb salesmen visit, this year I actually gave him a minute of my time and he had a light fixture that I was interested in. Are these salesmen for real though?
It seems like their shtick is to sell you a $100 light for $10-20 and keep the state efficiency rebate for themselves. He didn’t ask for our utility bill, didn’t pretend to be anyone official, and was straightforward in how he got paid. There was no “you pay me this much now and I pay you back later”. He seemed to be visiting garages mostly, and was pretty confused when he walked in to find a woodworking shop instead. This guy had a car full of lights and would have sold them on the spot if I had agreed to it, instead I said I would call him back.
It seems like I could buy the things myself and fill out the paperwork for the rebate but it’s not worth my time. I’m dubious of things that are too good to be true, but have any other small buisness folks dealt with a program like this?
Solar works sort of that way around me. They upcharge the installation by the amount of the rebate and bundle it into a convenient financing package.
Buy buying everything myself and paying for install I would get to use the rebates and lower the cost by 10 grand or so. But the companies that come out upcharge by the amount of the rebate and the homeowners go along with it because they are basically paying the same amount they would if they had the money to buy everything themselves with no rebate (but it’s financed).