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Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

arstechnica.com

171–180 of 194 posts

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commission typically isn't paid out until the company is paid in my experience. Bonuses are different, but some companies I work for actually tracked how many orders were actually fully paid for vs. how many were entered into the system. A concerning number of salespeople would basically sign people up if anything the customer said could be construed as being interested, and their numbers would look great until you l…

This was all over the cell phone industry when I worked networks side. This was pre-iPhone era, just to give an idea how long ago. I traveled around metro areas measuring signal quality, simple upgrades or maintenance, often stopping at nearby retail outlets rather than laptop in the truck. I’d get to know the store staff and they’d talk freely around me about “fake” signups to juice numbers. The trick was sign em up…

Heh, the same game gets played in retail commissions.

Didn't hit numbers for the month? Buy a bunch of your own product, wait a few days until the next cycle starts, then return it all.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#172
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ArsTechnica also does this routinely and they often post substantial updates (e.g. updating the title, bumping it back up on the homepage) once they get a response, so I’m really skeptical of claims that this is anything other than the balance you described.

Who's going to read the article in two days time when it's been corrected based on "new information" to say that all the claims are complete fabrications?

Everyone who looks at their front page, apparently.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's going to read the article in two days time when it's been corrected based on "new information" to say that all the claims are complete fabrications?

Everyone who looks at their front page, apparently.

Only if you are in the habit of rereading articles. Nothing on the front page suggests the article has been updated.

Damage done, Ars moves on to the next clickbait.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who looks at their front page, apparently.

Only if you are in the habit of rereading articles. Nothing on the front page suggests the article has been updated. Damage done, Ars moves on to the next clickbait.

Wouldn’t the updated title suggest that?

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#175

So, I have no idea what the truth is, but didn't Solar City get bought out by Tesla? In that case, it would seem like it would have been better to clear the books with an audit of past sales, so as to make the price Tesla would have to pay for Solar City, something easier for Tesla to pay. But, I am not a finance person.

Solar City was founded by Elon's cousin. They got a much better deal than was warranted by the numbers, and Musk is being sued by investors over it.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would economic rationality assume that the decision made will be made with perfect information as to resulting utilities and disutility and maximize the net lifetime experienced utility? This seems like a non sequitur, and a really silly assumption. Wouldn't economic rationality assume that the decisions of actors are rational rather than based on perfect information about their consequences?

> Why would economic rationality assume that the decision made will be made with perfect information as to resulting utilities and disutility and maximize the net lifetime experienced utility I didn't invent rational choice theory, so don't ask me to justify it. Ok, well, I'll take a stab at it—the whole concept is exquisitely well crafted as a basis for the argument that liberal (in the classical sense) economic, an…

Where are you getting the idea that rational choice theory necessarily assumes perfect information?

That is the simplest model of rationality, but there are others. Wikipedia[1] lists three others in addition to perfect information:

> Perfect information: The simple rational choice model above assumes that the individual has full or perfect information about the alternatives, i.e., the ranking between two alternatives involves no uncertainty.

> Choice under uncertainty: In a richer model that involves uncertainty about the how choices (actions) lead to eventual outcomes, the individual effectively chooses between lotteries, where each lottery induces a different probability distribution over outcomes. The additional assumption of independence of irrelevant alternatives then leads to expected utility theory.

> Inter-temporal choice: when decisions affect choices (such as consumption) at different points in time, the standard method for evaluating alternatives across time involves discounting future payoffs.

> Limited cognitive ability: identifying and weighing each alternative against every other may take time, effort, and mental capacity. Recognising the cost that these impose or cognitive limitations of individuals gives rise to theories of bounded rationality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you are in the habit of rereading articles. Nothing on the front page suggests the article has been updated. Damage done, Ars moves on to the next clickbait.

Wouldn’t the updated title suggest that?

Nothing on the front page suggests that anything has been updated. Title is still “Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales.”

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#178
post #5

"This tactic allegedly resulted, this person said, in tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in phantom revenue." SolarCity had revenues of ~$480M in 2016 [0]. "Tens of hundreds of millions" would mean billions of dollars of phantom revenue. Even if that fake revenue would be distributed over a couple of years, it would have been a significant proportion of SolarCity's revenue. Just seems unrealistic that the SEC or…

From what I can tell, prior to mid-2017 (which would include most or all of the period that the lawsuit covers) SolarCity's residential products were actually 20-30 year leases rather than outright purchases. Following GAAP accounting rules, the revenue from the lease payments would need to be spread out along the whole length of the contract, so a lot of the fake revenue that they are talking about might actually be anticipated future revenue spread across the next 20-30 years rather than revenue when the sale was made. 50-500 million spread across 25 years would be 2.5-25 million per year, which seems much more reasonable as a proportion of revenue that could potentially be faked.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#179
post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

Here in Mexico we had something called "Reforma Energetica", basically a constitutional reform of how the electricity is billed in Mexico, one of the few and unknown rule of said bill is that now all the industry has to generate at least 5% of its energy from renewable resources, so almost every major company is installing solar panels... I am on the metal working industry I have a 150 kVa transformer and 20kVa of solar panels installed... There is no subsidies from the government, but if you dont comply you will be fined starting on December 01. I had to invest heavily on my electrical installation, and there is a boom on renewable energies on mexico because of this...

Also, I had to change my capacitor bank to a newer one, an active one.

So maybe its just the US that is lagging on renewable energies...

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t the updated title suggest that?

Nothing on the front page suggests that anything has been updated. Title is still “Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales.”

That headline is still a literal statement of fact even if that triggers the emotional reaction which inspired you to donate your PR skills pro bono. The article clearly explained that these were claims made in a lawsuit brought by former employees and anyone who passed a civics class knows that someone can claim anything but you should wait to see what’s upheld in court.
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