This morning, while I was perusing through Google News, I noticed an advertisement for a solar-installation company that claimed, “Purchase our stock now, we just got more projects!” Upon closer examination of this company, I started raising more questions than answering them.

The company in question is the Onyx Energy Company, and it turned out that the “big news” Onyx was claiming was an article that their own website published. When I actually took the time to look at their website, several different elements screamed out at me “not a legitimate business.” There are actually so many, that I had to list them in bullet form:

• There is no contact phone number. While my own website is currently in the same situation, I am not a publicly traded corporation…I am not even technically “in business” yet as of writing this article. However, the very day I will open my door to customers is the day I post a phone number on my website. To fail to do so is…shady.
• I did a WHOIS search on their domain name, onyxservice.com, and found that their web-presence began as of May 28, 2011. This means that Onyx first appeared on the web only 8 months ago. By comparison, I’ve owned my domain since 2002.
• There are only three projects on their entire website that they claim to have completed. While this makes sense in terms of possible progress over 8 months, it does not make sense in terms of a solar-installation company, as this is not enough experience to call yourself an “industry leader” in anything, which their web-banner boasts every few seconds.
• There is no section on the website that discusses the products or services that the company provides. If I were a prospective customer, there is no clear way for me to buy anything. There are links to OTHER manufacturing companies, but nothing that Onyx makes.
• There is, however, an entire page devoted to “investor relations,” that includes more information on their company’s history than the rest of the website in its entirety.
• Most concerning of all: They make the claim that Nicola Tesla has invented a means of transferring power “wirelessly,” by “enriching” radio waves with extra electrons.

Ok. That’s as far as I need to go, because to me, that last point is the “smoking gun” piece of evidence that this company is a scam and possibly a “market bubble.” By this term, I mean a company that is created for the sole purpose of being publicly traded and then sold to another company. They never actually make or produce anything, they just look like they’re really knowledgeable and successful, in order to trick other investors into wanting a piece of their success. This process exactly matches an old con-artist’s method of duping a bunch of people into investing into a company that doesn’t actually exist, then walking away with the investment money.

How can I prove this? Well, their basis for “enriched” radio waves is complete nonsense. Electrons are a type of fermion that has mass and electric charge. A radio wave is a photon, which is also known in the quantum-physics field as a boson, a mass-less, charge-less, particle. Electrons and photons aren’t anything alike, they act entirely differently under the same conditions. It is not possible to attach a photon to an electron. Please read my guide to How Solar Modules Work, as I clearly explain how electrons and photons interact. What this company is claiming is as silly and impossible as claiming, “We figured out how to make warp-drive using duct tape and butter.” I’m not convinced.

Lastly, to me, the timeline of this entire company doesn’t add up. From only a 30-second search on Google about publicly-traded companies, this company would have to first be appraised by an outside firm as having more than $100 million dollars in corporate capital. How exactly does a company start up and then not only acquire that much capital…but then successfully apply to and be granted public-trading status in only an 8-month time-frame? It doesn’t, that’s not possible.

Most assuredly, it’s not possible to achieve that level of business growth off of only three construction projects, the largest of which just went through today, for only $84 million. Since I’ve worked my entire career in the Solar Industry, I can pretty surely gauge their profit margin to be within 10% and 20%, meaning for that $84 million project, the maximum profit they can attain is $16.8 million.

I strongly advise to stand back from this company and watch what happens. If I were to make an educated guess, I anticipate a notable spike in the stock price of this company (as more investors are duped into purchasing stock), followed immediately by rapid-onset and sudden bankruptcy (brought on by spectacular embezzlement). Recall Solyndra…I predict in the next two to three years, Onyx Energy Company will be in the exact same situation.