CB
Cobus B
1 reviews | Active since Nov 2021
01 Sept 2023, 15:55
VOLOCITY ENERGY SOLUTIONS ----- BEWARE OF THESE SOLAR ****MERS
Volocity Energy Solutions is represented by director Ms. Maryna Smith, Operational manager Mr. Roelof Barnard and Sales representative Mr. Frederick Ebersohn. Ms. Smith and Mr. Barnard are also the directors and owners of a professional accounting firm, Barnard and Gilfillan. Two professional accountants operating a highly suspect solar installation scheme on the side.
Beware of these ****mers, this is their modus operandi: • Installation of cheap, sub-standard, low wattage (second hand?) solar panels as opposed to the expensive high wattage solar panels, as quoted on and paid for. • Using every cheap trick in the book to cut corners and costs, giving you a solar solution that performs inadequately, is a major safety and fire hazard and will never be approved for insurance purposes. (Totally absent or incorrect sized earthing wire, wiring fuses, incorrect electrical wiring, incorrect circuit breakers, incorrect brackets to secure panels to the roof, leaving panel wiring exposed to the elements and UV, just to name a few). • Issuing *****ulent COC certificates for electrical compliance and insurance. • These facts have been confirmed by the Inspection Authority of SA, acting on behalf of the Department of Employment & Labour after an inspection of 3 completed and 1 aborted installation Volocity performed for me. • Whenever we attempted to raise a concern, we were sweet talked into the “operational” delays from unavailability of stock to unexpected crises with demanding clients. This all proved to be totally fabricated to solicit more upfront payments coupled with idle promises of imminent completion. They even committed to specific timelines that were blatantly negated! • Volocity entices clients with claims of “Inhouse Financing”. What a complete hoax!
I had the misfortune to contract Volocity in November 2023 to install 2 separate solar solutions at my commercial building. The 1st installation was eventually completed in May 2023, more than 5 months later and is performing woefully and inadequately vs the expected and proclaimed energy production and output, as initially presented by Volocity. (Not to mention the savings on my energy bill that never materialized). I will have to remove the entire installation, install new/correct equipment and have it re-installed by an above-board, compliant solar installer. Needless to say, adding hundreds of thousands of Rand to my intended and promised solar solution. The cost of this inferior installation does not even include the damages suffered by my business as a result of the delays and continued astronomical electricity bills.
On the 2nd installation, I paid an 80% deposit of more than a million Rand and yet, have nothing to show for it. Volocity aborted the installation and disappeared with the funds. I was compelled to engage legal counsel and Mr. Roelf Barnard’s words were, “I have been to court before and I can drag this out for years.”
Mr. Frederick Ebersohn is a very convincing con artist, Mr. Roelf Barnard on the other hand is much worse!!! Shame on you Mr. Barnard, you are a man without a conscience, de*****ing and misleading desperate clients with idle promises, whilst killing small businesses trying their best to find a solution against load shedding.
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Volocity Energy Solutions's replyOfficial
04 Sept 2023, 11:20As with the other negative review this is about clients wanting a state-of-the-art solution and when the time for payment comes the queries and complaints starts. I am going to deal with installations separately as I did in various emails to this client in our effort to resolve this.
Mr. Botma’s Private residence and his mother’s residence.
We received Mr Botma’s deposit on 25 November 2022. His system was switched on 7 December 2022 and the client expressed gratitude at the time. I must state that we also installed a battery box at the client’s request for which he refused to pay. We installed the same system at his mother’s house, which also performed above our projected results. Mr Botma communicated with our staff a while later stating that he does not get the same performance from the panels as his mother did. This was somewhere in March. Obviously roof direction and environmental factors played a role. We sent one of our teams to investigate all connections to ensure that there is no installation problem. On 25 May 2023 I received an email from Mr Botma himself that highlighted various concerns he had with the installation that included the panels. To keep the client happy, we sourced other panels from a different supplier at a cost of around R100k to the company and replaced the panels. Mr Botma wanted to buy to extra panels from a shop at a China mall, but I offered to rather source the correct panels and install it at an additional cost. Upon completing the installation, we never received payment for the additional panels, which surely illustrates a second time that the client does not want to pay. On 22 June Mr Botma sent an email to myself confirming that the panels was installed and that he is now happy with the system performance. So, his reference to his house installation is very strange and we must attribute it to mere tactics not to pay his bill.
Mr Botma is the owner of Mays Chemist and the building where Mays Chemist is situated in. Mr Botma was referred to us by a happy client where we did 2 different installations. I met with Mr Botma initially to look at his requirements at his building. At this meeting he wanted a quotation to put the chemist on a solar system as the first project and secondly, he wanted to put the other section (with Medicross as tenant) that ran from a different power supply as the second project. I specifically asked if the other tenants must also be on the solar system upon which Mr Botma expressed that the other tenants can sort out their own backup electricity as some of them like the butchery might use a lot of power, which would not be financially viable. I later sent the sales representative, Mr Ebersohn, to meet up with the client to finalize the quotation. Mr Ebersohn was also told that only the pharmacy must be on the solar and not all the tenants. I confirmed this with Mr Ebersohn before we send the quotation. The quotation was in full detail and can easily be verified. Mr Botma accepted the quotations. We started on the Pharmacy side but were quickly stopped when Mr Botma saw that we only worked on the pharmacy’s electricity and not the other tenants. Mr Ebersohn took this up with the client and also referred back to the quotation pointing that this is what was quoted. It was explained that this is a lot of extra work and extra material that will bear extra cost. Mr Botma agreed to this, and the installation continued. The system was working fully on 31 March 2023 and performed better than what was predicted. This was pointed out to Mr Botma in a meeting in his office after he also complained about poor performance, and we could prove that he was wrong on his own phone that monitored the system performance. There is an outstanding amount on this installation in excess of R550k, which is the 3rd little bit of proof that the client is using excuses not to pay. This is obviously putting financial strain on our business as well and maybe Mr Botma must explain his statement about small businesses as we are also not a large corporate entity.
The other section of the building (Medicross side) is partly done. We have installed all the required panels and did all the electrical work, which include the AC and DC side. We must only supply and install the Inverters and batteries. I stopped the installation due to concern for payment as Mr Botma at a meeting at the end of April, in his office, informed me that he is not in a position to pay Volocity. Surely it would be bad business practice to continue doing work if you know you are not going to get paid. None of us work for free.
I want to address the allegations that we are ********s.
Firstly, I want to state that myself Roelf Barnard is involved in a lot of businesses. Surely being an accountant by profession does not disqualify me from running another business. In fact, it has become very common practice to have qualified accountants run big business as we are trained to understand controls and good business practice. In fact in a resent survey by Businesstech 38% of the top CEO’s in South Africa are Chartered accountants and a further 16% has a B.Com degree. I appoint the correct people to do the job and focus on my strength to manage a business and people. A business does not only have the technical side that associates with the industry but requires many other aspects to function properly. To know more about the industry I am in, I normally qualify myself in some sort of technical aspect of that business as I did here. I am in fact the proud owner of a PV green card as some institutions requires for installation.
Mr Botma ********s disappear, but I am still here trying to resolve your issues. I can also be found very easily if someone wants to have a word or steer any sort of communication my way. Your comment about me dragging out legal disputes is also clearly mistaken as I am the one that must take legal action to get you to pay Volocity. It is surely not in our best interest to drag out the court case.
Mr Botma you also allege that we issued ********** COC’s
Our installation teams each have a qualified electrician, but being an accountant I like to double check compliance. We therefore use an outside electrician on each installation to ensure that installations are fully compliant. You alerted us that the electrician used on your site was in fact deregistered. Yes we slipped up here by not checking their credentials with the department of labor, but we did rectify that. We got an electrical engineer that visited all your sites after you alerted us about the ********** electrician. This engineer has been vetted and is registered. The engineer alerted me directly about some non compliance issues, which we addressed. After these issues was corrected he issued new COC’s and a copy was mailed to you. I kept the original safe as I require payment before it will be released to you.
Mr Botma you have very selective memory or your memory is fading. I sincerely hope the medication you hand out to your clients are the correct medication as is written on the doctors’ scripts.
Volocity Energy Solutions's reply04 Sept 2023, 11:20
Official
As with the other negative review this is about clients wanting a state-of-the-art solution and when the time for payment comes the queries and complaints starts. I am going to deal with installations separately as I did in various emails to this client in our effort to resolve this.
Mr. Botma’s Private residence and his mother’s residence.
We received Mr Botma’s deposit on 25 November 2022. His system was switched on 7 December 2022 and the client expressed gratitude at the time. I must state that we also installed a battery box at the client’s request for which he refused to pay. We installed the same system at his mother’s house, which also performed above our projected results. Mr Botma communicated with our staff a while later stating that he does not get the same performance from the panels as his mother did. This was somewhere in March. Obviously roof direction and environmental factors played a role. We sent one of our teams to investigate all connections to ensure that there is no installation problem. On 25 May 2023 I received an email from Mr Botma himself that highlighted various concerns he had with the installation that included the panels. To keep the client happy, we sourced other panels from a different supplier at a cost of around R100k to the company and replaced the panels. Mr Botma wanted to buy to extra panels from a shop at a China mall, but I offered to rather source the correct panels and install it at an additional cost. Upon completing the installation, we never received payment for the additional panels, which surely illustrates a second time that the client does not want to pay. On 22 June Mr Botma sent an email to myself confirming that the panels was installed and that he is now happy with the system performance. So, his reference to his house installation is very strange and we must attribute it to mere tactics not to pay his bill.
Mr Botma is the owner of Mays Chemist and the building where Mays Chemist is situated in. Mr Botma was referred to us by a happy client where we did 2 different installations. I met with Mr Botma initially to look at his requirements at his building. At this meeting he wanted a quotation to put the chemist on a solar system as the first project and secondly, he wanted to put the other section (with Medicross as tenant) that ran from a different power supply as the second project. I specifically asked if the other tenants must also be on the solar system upon which Mr Botma expressed that the other tenants can sort out their own backup electricity as some of them like the butchery might use a lot of power, which would not be financially viable. I later sent the sales representative, Mr Ebersohn, to meet up with the client to finalize the quotation. Mr Ebersohn was also told that only the pharmacy must be on the solar and not all the tenants. I confirmed this with Mr Ebersohn before we send the quotation. The quotation was in full detail and can easily be verified. Mr Botma accepted the quotations. We started on the Pharmacy side but were quickly stopped when Mr Botma saw that we only worked on the pharmacy’s electricity and not the other tenants. Mr Ebersohn took this up with the client and also referred back to the quotation pointing that this is what was quoted. It was explained that this is a lot of extra work and extra material that will bear extra cost. Mr Botma agreed to this, and the installation continued. The system was working fully on 31 March 2023 and performed better than what was predicted. This was pointed out to Mr Botma in a meeting in his office after he also complained about poor performance, and we could prove that he was wrong on his own phone that monitored the system performance. There is an outstanding amount on this installation in excess of R550k, which is the 3rd little bit of proof that the client is using excuses not to pay. This is obviously putting financial strain on our business as well and maybe Mr Botma must explain his statement about small businesses as we are also not a large corporate entity.
The other section of the building (Medicross side) is partly done. We have installed all the required panels and did all the electrical work, which include the AC and DC side. We must only supply and install the Inverters and batteries. I stopped the installation due to concern for payment as Mr Botma at a meeting at the end of April, in his office, informed me that he is not in a position to pay Volocity. Surely it would be bad business practice to continue doing work if you know you are not going to get paid. None of us work for free.
I want to address the allegations that we are ********s.
Firstly, I want to state that myself Roelf Barnard is involved in a lot of businesses. Surely being an accountant by profession does not disqualify me from running another business. In fact, it has become very common practice to have qualified accountants run big business as we are trained to understand controls and good business practice. In fact in a resent survey by Businesstech 38% of the top CEO’s in South Africa are Chartered accountants and a further 16% has a B.Com degree. I appoint the correct people to do the job and focus on my strength to manage a business and people. A business does not only have the technical side that associates with the industry but requires many other aspects to function properly. To know more about the industry I am in, I normally qualify myself in some sort of technical aspect of that business as I did here. I am in fact the proud owner of a PV green card as some institutions requires for installation.
Mr Botma ********s disappear, but I am still here trying to resolve your issues. I can also be found very easily if someone wants to have a word or steer any sort of communication my way. Your comment about me dragging out legal disputes is also clearly mistaken as I am the one that must take legal action to get you to pay Volocity. It is surely not in our best interest to drag out the court case.
Mr Botma you also allege that we issued ********** COC’s
Our installation teams each have a qualified electrician, but being an accountant I like to double check compliance. We therefore use an outside electrician on each installation to ensure that installations are fully compliant. You alerted us that the electrician used on your site was in fact deregistered. Yes we slipped up here by not checking their credentials with the department of labor, but we did rectify that. We got an electrical engineer that visited all your sites after you alerted us about the ********** electrician. This engineer has been vetted and is registered. The engineer alerted me directly about some non compliance issues, which we addressed. After these issues was corrected he issued new COC’s and a copy was mailed to you. I kept the original safe as I require payment before it will be released to you.
Mr Botma you have very selective memory or your memory is fading. I sincerely hope the medication you hand out to your clients are the correct medication as is written on the doctors’ scripts.