Arcadia Reviews 1.165

I am currently an Arcadia customer who is "lucky" enough to be enrolled in a solar farm. Since being enrolled my bill has increased almost 50%. The MAJOR issue with this company is the lack of transparency in how they bill you. The only thing their bill shows is a charge and a 10% credit. It does not show you how they came to the charge of your bill. I've inquired about this several times via email and phone and I get the same generic response everyone else is getting (All customers enrolled in Community Solar get to keep a certain portion of the savings generated by their portion of the solar projects. The remaining portion goes back to the developer as a fee to maintain your project." Okay great show me the bill the solar farm sent you. When you subscribe to a solar farm you should get a bill from the farm and from your utility. I get a bill from my utility and Arcadia shrugs it's shoulders in how they came to the amount they are charging me. You can improve your service significantly by including the bill you receive from the solar farm for your customers. Extremely shady to be hiding it and when I asked for it today the rep couldn't explain to me how Arcadia charges me each month. 90 - 180 days to cancel service when you go to do that to.

In response to the below: I have been in contact with support for over 2 weeks. So far no one has been able to provide me a clear answer about the bill. No one can provide me an itemized bill on the charges from the solar farm I am subscribed to. The only information your website provides is a total charge and a savings of 10 percent but no real information as to how those charges were calculated. I know how to read my Utility bill. This information is NOT available there as the charges come from the solar farm NOT from my utility.

They promised this community solar project I signed up for would be completed over a year ago. Every time it gets close to the promised date, the promised date gets pushed out.

Originally it was promised to be last summer, then it got pushed out to Jan 2023. Logged on in Jan 2023 found it had been pushed out to Feb 2023. Logged in in Feb 2023 and found it had been pushed out to Aug 2023. Logged on again right now and now it is saying Sept 2023. I have no confidence that this will ever happen.

I have received absolutely no communication from Arcadia explaining what is happening here.

The only reason why I give this two stars is because Arcadia allows me to pay my utility bill with a credit card without any additional fees. Since I can get points from this at least I save a couple of dollars.

EDIT: Just to be clear - I was never on any waitlist. I was assigned to a specific community solar project since Spring 2022 so this generic nonsense in the response about "wait lists" is completely irrelevant.

Of course there will be delays...if it had been a few months, I wouldn't have minded. But this is more than a year now with dates promised and continually being blown through. At this point, there are only two options - Arcadia scammed me (keeps lying about the completion date so I don't go elsewhere) or incompetent (they don't know what they are doing).

EDIT (10/4/2022): Just logged into my Arcadia account today hoping to finally see some solar power finally being generated (my Con Ed bill came today). I shouldn't have got my hopes up. Now it is saying October and Fall 2022. This is just nuts. This is a completely untrustable company. Reducing to 1 star.

The Representatives knocking door to door are rude, disrespectful and arrogant. One specifically in Cherry Hill, NJ on 8/10/2023 walked into my garage uninvited and would not leave after I told him I was not interested.
I told him to get out of my home and I was calling the police. When I picked up my phone he smugly said "you calling your husband "I would never do business with a company that hires ignorant, incompetent representatives. If I could I would not give any stars.

Signed up last summer (2022) via a door-to-door solicitation in Chicago. I have 4 meters, so that should have gotten the salesguy all excited. Its been 15 months. I cant see how they calculate the bills. The only data they give you is KwH each month. The final monthly amounts for 15 months are all over the place (not a straight line relationship with KwH used) though bills are reasonably similar to before. Only prob is that only 1 of my 4 meters is actually connected to a solar farm so far. Been over a year --- could solar farms be that in demand?

I have been with Arcadia for several years, and they are an excellent company! Their representatives are very helpful and courteous any time I have contacted them with any questions. I would highly recommend Arcadia.

I’m a ConEd customer who partnered with Arcadia. Sign up with Arcadia, let them pair you with a solar farm, they will pay your conEd bill (a middle man) and get 10% off your conEd bill total. Sounds pretty great right AND you’re helping the planet. That’s the pitch. Getting paired could take months and does and once you’re officially paired with said farm… Then it could take months after that before you start seeing any savings on your conEd bill because as it was described to me… It takes at least a couple of months for the solar farm to start producing the energy. (I was officially put on a solar farm ‘Yorktown’ in June 2023… I had signed up for the project back in November 2022).

To add to this mess…a company called The Future Card…advertised that if you use your Future card to pay your Arcadia Bill… They will give you an additional 10% off your Arcadia Bill!. That was until I got an email from Arcadia saying were no longer going handle my billing… That they were returning that back to conEd… So I call Arcadia and said yes but I’ve signed up for the Future card to pay my Arcadia bill and if I don’t have an Arcadia bill that means I don’t get my additional 10% off… Not their problem they inferred.

This prompted me to call conEd. They have no idea who they’re in bed with.

So I make another phone call to Arcadia who said that if I wanted them to handle my bill, I’d have to switch to auto pay but with a new account. Which meant getting back in line for a new ‘farm’. She offered a $5 credit to my arcadia account for my trouble. I asked what good would that do. Then she tells me to pay my arcadia bill. Wait what? It was then disclosed that by joining Arcadia and my solar farm that they would indeed give me a 10% credit to my con Ed bill but then I would owe the other 90% to Arcadia. So I’m not saving money anywhere I’m left paying my ConEd bill with that 10% discount and then I have to pay the rest Arcadia. Which means I’m actually going to be paying more than I would have in the first place to pay off my solar credits with Arcadia. I told her how insane that was because their pitch was to save people money and help the Earth. She said “if that’s how you see it.’ I told her I wanted to cancel immediately and she said it takes 90 days to cancel. To which I inquired that if my energy farm starts producing energy in the next three months, then even though I’m canceling, I’m still going to have to pay conEd plus Arcadia. She said that’s correct.

I signed up for the service because it sounded like I was going to be getting a break on my energy bill and doing something good for the planet. These people are trying to give out gift cards to keep customers (’Cairo’ from Arcadia admitted this) because people are finding out how bogus this is. I cannot believe that I have to wait three months and I’m going to pay more (if and when it produces energy’ than I originally would have… and during the summer when prices are their highest during a time when the planet is literally at its hottest ever.

I don’t want to wait 90 days….I want out of this NOW and I caution you to spread the word about this company and its murky tactics about clean energy.

I’ll be cancelling my Future Card as well as I no longer trust anyone who’s involved in this. Oh and btw….she told me she could no longer give me the $5 towards my Arcadia account since I was canceling.

Better Get Baquero with NBC…here I come. Stay away from both of these companies.

Great company and saves me money each month

I signed up with them and my bill immediately went from $55.00 a month to $92.00! I called them about it and got no real answer as to why. Never again will I do business with them.
This is only the second bad review I have ever written about a company, so it’s not a habit of mine, but I thought this was too much to ignore.

Arcadia is a scam run by Kiran Bhatraju. Under the guise of environmental health, Kiran and the team at Arcadia fraudulently manufacture bills, effectively obtaining interest free loans from their subscribers. They have a cancellation policy of 90-180 days meaning 3-6 months. you MUST have a card on file they can charge at their whim. They do not provide actual bills or data on how they do billing and refuse to provide any data when requested. I suggest anyone else who has been scammed by this company reach out to regulators not the better business breau they are not a government entity so that we can get this place closed down for good or fined heavily enough where they are forced to operate ethically and transparently but since this a scam at its core they will most likely shutter and Kiran Bhatraju will create another shell company but either or is a win. for the time being I want to spread awareness of this scam so others do not fall victim. Do not be taken advantage of because you want to do something nice for the environment, these scammers are counting on it.

Their website makes it impossible to have control over your own auto-pay abilities. Once you sign up for auto-pay they now have full control to charge you whatever they want to charge you.
Even if you do see savings on your electric bill through them, you better not try to cancel because they will find a way to bill you extra for "Community solar credits" which is code for "we're stealing from you".
I'd love to see proof that they are even actually working with solar farms.
None of the billing statements are itemized. There is no transparency at all.

The best part, is there is a clause in their contracts that states:
"Any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or
relating to this Agreement ... shall be resolved by arbitration in the JAMS or other accredited arbitration
office located closest in mileage to your permanent place
of residence ... We agree that any Dispute between us shall be
resolved exclusively by arbitration as set forth in this Section 11 (“Arbitration Provision”). Either
Party may initiate the arbitration process by filing the necessary forms with JAMS"

If you go to the above website to file an arbitration, JAMS expects you to pay them at least $2,000 up front in legal fees.
So basically, you're screwed.

Read your contracts before signing them, kids.
I never saw ANY discounts or credits on my account until after I tried to cancel the plan, then suddenly I had credits that I needed to pay back to the "solar farm".

Maybe if the company spent less time replying to all these negative reviews and more time updating their website, training their customer service reps, and fixing their entire business model...

Their sales guy presented himself as an agent of a government program. That’s illegal. I told him to leave, so he stood on my front porch and insulted me until I pulled my phone out. Don’t do business with people like this.

What a scam company. Highly recommend you stay away mainly because their customer service is a joke. I specifically requested to cancel my account through email and got confirmation from the customer service rep that it was canceled. I also got an auto email notification stating that the account was closed but lo and behold, I get an email 2 weeks later stating that my Utility account bill will be charged through Arcadia and that I need to cancel autopay through my utility account to avoid double charging.

I have email proofs which I have saved luckily and have reached out again for account cancellation. On top of this, I signed up during a promotion which was not honored at all even though I saved the offer webpage and went back & forth with the customer service team for multiple days.

Overall, this is a company that I would highly recommend people stay away from. The reason I recommend people to stay away has nothing to do with whether Arcadia offers clean energy or not and there is a good chance that Arcadia probably does offer the clean energy as they claim. But, the reason I do recommend people stay away is because of their unsupportive customer service once you're lured in, making it extra difficult to cancel their service in case you run into issues.

Run away like its the plague.

I’m knocking off a star because Arcadia used to offer wind energy as a unregulated supply company and my rate went up after 2 years. However, I did see that in the contract. Recently, I actually was surprised at how amazing their Community Solar Farm program was, though. I joined last summer in Maryland. It took me 4 bills to get my 5-10 percent discount but the nice thing is that it actually is a savings agreement and no contract so u can join or leavE whenever. They state of Maryland has STRICT consumer protection laws on Community Solar so they can’t screw with you. So far I’ve saved a couple hu dried bucks, and unlike the other programs ~ you can opt out anytime. I don’t think we will be since it’s a fixed discount percentage credit. Well, I suppose hey made UP FOR THEIR INVOLVEMENT in green power plans.

LESSON: ONLY JOIN ARCADIA IF THEY OFFER COMMUNITY SOLAR FIXED 5-10% discount….do not use them as a supply.

I have not been receiving bills in a timely manner from Arcadia. I have been on the phone with them each month after receiving my utility bill from my electricity provider. I have been on the phone with them since January every month in order to pay my bill which they receive from my provider. I don't believe it has been a good experience with this solar provider as the customer service people can not explain the billing department policies nor can they put you in contact with anyone in the department to explain the procedure. I am in the process of filing a complaint with the Illinois Commerce Commission about this company and its policies which have changed dramatically from when I enrolled. Do not use this company for renewable energies. Their business practices seem to be a little shady.

Scam. They lead you to believe that you will see savings on your electric bill when in fact there are no savings at all. I still receive 2 electric bills each month; one from Arcadia and one from RI Energy. I called today to cancel my subscription (which is billed to my credit card each month) and they told me it would take 180 days to process the cancellation! Six months to cancel a subscription?? Stay away from them. If you've already been suckered in, cancel.

Signed up in early 2022. Reps assured me when soliciting me at my home that IT WOULD NOT COST ME TO BE A MEMBER, but that I could save alittle on the electric portion of my National grid bill. Since my May 2022 billing to current May 2023, I have paid $914.69 over what my N-G bills called for. EXAMPLE: Due to HEAP payments and overages while N-G made adjustments to my budget plan my Nat. Grid actual bill has been $0.00 the last 4 months but Arcadia has still billed me $80.06, $76.46, $63.92, and 61.92 for this month. (oh, but they did credit me for solar "savings" each month. $3.23 this month/some deal. 3 months ago I tried to explain my complaint to a rep who said he could see my point but that I was accumulating "credits" and that he could inform billing I wanted to use them to pay my actual portion until used up. He stated it could take 2-3 billing periods to kick in & I said fine. 5/8/23 I spoke to someone else and I asked If they keep a record of calls and he said he could see my previous dialogue but that the rep misinformed me. That I do not have a monetary credit in my favor. If not for this I could have cancelled then and at least saved the $76.46, $63.92 and $61.29 that I believe are excess payments for the last 3 billing periods . I cannot see how a company can be allowed to sign you up with misinformation and then still mis-inform you when you question it. Spending (my May billing) $61.29 to save a $3.23 solar credit isn't saving and I REPEAT, I was told by the sign up reps it would NOT cost me more than my National Grid bill to join. Too bad 1 star is the lowest rating I can give. This is what Business has come to.

I am revising my review of Arcadia after clarifying with my electric company (Ameren) that going forward, Ameren and Arcadia will be billing separately. I also managed to obtain a pretty clear explanation from Ameren of Arcadia's benefits--that is, the Solar Farm power credits that Arcadia transfers to my account basically reduce supply costs on my Ameren account by around $30/month. That is a substantial savings and it's from clean solar energy.
So, Arcadia, I'm giving you a second chance and a revised review. Let's hope, all's well that ends well.

U must say...Great Company! Never had any problems with my bills and my bill were never High!

I haven’t really decided if this is good company or not my last monthly bill to xcel was late. I contacted Arcadia on it and told them I paid my bill to current and then Arcadia took out what I was supposed to pay for those two months now I have no idea where this $300 went.

They have not reached out in the three emails I have sent them.

Just had a salesman come to my house and he went through the entire process, then states I have to set up automatic payments to them, I refused because I don’t trust them yet, he walks away complaining quite loudly that I just wasted all of his time, if that’s how they treat prospective customers I hate to think of how you’re treated after you sign a contract, don’t do it.