Bentley residents dealing with unlicensed door- to-door salesmen

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) -The city of Bentley says door-to-door salespeople have approached multiple homeowners claiming to sell solar panels, but they want you to know they are not licensed to do it.

“It was red flags,” said Sheryl Gowen, a Bentley resident.

Gowen had one of the salesmen approach her door, but she recognized his offers were too good to be true. he offered solar panels, saying multiple people in town were in the market, and that Evergy would buy back all the excess energy,

“Then he said it wouldn’t cost me anything, and I mean, there’s like alarm bells going off in my head going ‘nah, nah’, no, this is not going to happen,” Gowen said.

She eventually got him to leave her alone, but it wasn’t easy.

“Never, never agree to anything on the first meeting,” Gowen said, “Never. Doesn’t matter how time sensitive it is.”

Sheryl saw the warning signs and knew how to stay safe from these scammers. However, other people in Bentley haven’t been so lucky.

“We started receiving reports from citizens here in town of door to door vendors trying to sell solar panel kits to homes,” said James Bryan, Chief of Police for Bentley.

Bryan said that, unfortunately, they don’t all go the way Gowen’s went.

“We further found out that a local resident had purchased a system on the spot, and it appears that he’s been defrauded of several thousand dollars,” Bryan said.

Chief Bryan says to stay safe, call your city or town hall and ask if the company is registered to go door-to-door, or check the Better Business Bureau website for their listing.

“They’ll turn every trick to get inside the door, try to get you to sign a contract on the spot using high-pressure sales, fake and bogus offers, rebates, time-sensitive matters,” Bryan said.

Copyright 2025 KWCH. All rights reserved. To report a correction or typo, please email news@kwch.com