How This Man Pulled Off a Billion-Dollar Solar Scam

In the world of scams, it's rare to have so many large established companies fall for it. DC solar and their CEO, Jeff Carpoff created the ultimate scam. In this episode we explore the unbelievable story of how an ex-drug dealer conned some of the most prestigious firms in the world.

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[ulamss]

He literally had years with billions in funds to hire pretty much any single university student intern who could've made such a mind-blowingly simple product. It is literally many orders of magnitudes simpler than the average capstone project.

[muhdiversity]

"They paid 150k to save 45k in taxes for 13k worth of equipment?"

My neighbor got quoted over $80k by a solar installer for a system but she shouldn't worry because she can get 30% back from the government. I estimate there wasn't more than $20K of equipment in her install. But their get out of jail card is the "install labor cost".

[mullenio]

Who the fuck needs 149 vehicles? Pure and untempered greed.

[seasong]

He could have just hired real engineers to build the product for real, but instead chose to go to prison

[artsmith]

I can't get past the part where they had a legitimate start via movie industry and couldn't make it work after that.

[nikanj]

9:38 "Imagine using Google to build something that would net your company hundreds of millions of dollars"

Software Engineers: "Umm..."

[Chayton]

So fun fact: I was working and going though training as an alarm dispatcher for the company that DC Solar used to secure their warehouse, at the time that the feds raided him in dec 2018. I also lived nearby so familiar with the name and location. A girl next to me also in training shouts out "I have a video alarm it's a bunch of guys in what looks like a car museum!" I said what's the account name and address? She said DC Solar. She showed me the motion activated video alarm, it was all of the feds busting in to seize his assets! part of his massive car collection he was storing in the warehouse. I never got to hear the call, but how funny it must have been to hear his reaction when she called down the contact list and asked him if there was supposed to be a bunch of people running around his warehouse that night LOL

[ScottiStudios]

It wasn't a ground breaking invention, but it seemed to get enough interest and attention that this guy could have become a millionaire from running a legitimate business. Greed makes them think it will be a good idea to scam their way into becoming a billionaire instead, and for some reason they think no one will notice.

[holleey]

people worried about their static solar panel installations getting stolen? what?
in what society do you have to fear your very house getting dismantled by robbers?

[SafarWIP]

So Berkshire lost 344mill and made 377mill on tax credit, .

[jf]

What a stupid idea. People are afraid of their panels getting stolen. So they put them on a trailer, instead of on a permanent installation.... WTF lololol. A trailer is FAR easier to steal, I have installed solar, you cannot just snip it and walk off with it. Not unnoticed.

[bustedbankrolls]

Sound quality was just fine, awesome video

[photographe]

Let me explain the scam as I understood it:
- companies pay an intial 30% on a high priced mobile solar generator, but never see the generator.
- companies immediately get the 30% back from tax credits
- DC Solar promises to lease their newly purchased generator to other companies to repay the missing 70% at no cost for the initial buyer. And then once all is paid to transfer the lease revenues to the initial buyer.
- DC solar prices the generators at 10x real cost: so a 150K purchase gets 45K tax credit and 30K profit for DC solar. All 45K is actually paid by tax payers money.

So the companies are not scammed: the tax payers are. This explains why there is so little due diligence.

[hobthatnob]

Can you do one on that Vietnamese woman who scammed like $112 billion dollars and was sent to death?

[FlyWithMe_]

As an investor, I’d be very careful to invest in a ponzi scheme. They’re often fraudulent.

[DAG_]

"my boss told me the company needs X more tax breaks... oh here, let's spend millions on this rando thing and I've met my goal for this year 🎉" ... sadly I see this in the corporate world, all the time

[logandixson]

Let's just ignore the fact bro was able to sell drugs as a causal second job

[tootzy-the-roll]

Time and time again, investors showed they know nothing about due diligence.

[danlowe]

People don't understand how little energy is produced by solar panels. Example: the $150K trailers shown had 10ea, 300w panels = 3000watts. An avg of 4 hours/day (varies by latitude, but 4 is middle range) = 12, 000 watt-hours/day, or 12 kilowatt-hours of energy produced per day. This is 360 kWh per month. The avg household in the USA consumes 900 kWh/month.
And this was expected to power events and charge EVs? An EV, with a 60kWh battery pack, would use 5 days of the trailer's power production to charge.
The lack of knowledge on the subject has made solar a scammer's dream.

[virgilkane]

I find these scammer videos highly entertaining .