First Choice Power Sucks

Keith Woodward Jr. thought something was horribly wrong when he got a $256.85 electricity bill for a month that his business was only open a few days.

Turns out, there was.

Woodward was one of two Galveston County residents whose electricity bill problems were solved while The Galveston County Daily News worked on this story.

During March, 1,075 Texans filed complaints with the Texas Public Utility Commission about their electric companies.

In Galveston County, 22 First Choice customers filed complaints about their rates in the past four months.

Those complaints came after customers attempted to work out their problems with the electric providers to no avail.

Terry Hadley, spokesman for the commission, said customers should file complaints when bills don’t add up and companies don’t answer questions.

The Fine Print

Hadley said problems sometimes occur when customers don’t understand their contracts. In Woodward’s case, part of the problem was the lack of one.

Woodward began calling First Choice Power customer service lines when he got his March bill, showing that his rate increased from 21 cents per kilowatt-hour to 73 cents.

Answers weren’t easy to come by.

“They kept passing us off,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. All these people I called, they were rude. They were calling us liars. My parents were in tears. We couldn’t even get a supervisor to talk to us.”

After nine days of phone calls, a First Choice employee faxed him a letter that the company said he should have gotten in November, explaining the new rate plan.

The bottom paragraph of that letter explains another side of electricity deregulation that is just recently affecting businesses.

Woodward’s business pays electricity based both on the total power used and how high the usage is at its peak.

It’s a demand-based pricing method to compensate for the cost the electricity service provider incurs to supply electricity at peak times.

Only since January have companies like First Choice Power, which was under regulated pricing before then, charged those fees.

“I don’t want the customers to think we’re taking advantage of them because we’re not,” First Choice pricing and rates manager Scott Cassaday said. “It’s just that under the old system, we weren’t recovering that cost and now we are.”

But when First Choice spokeswoman Catherine Carlton looked up account information to answer questions about the new rates and the billing department contacted Woodward about his problems, the real problem came out.

Woodward’s demand meter was never reset, so he was paying for a much higher demand charge.

Carlton said the meter would be reset and the charges canceled.

But Woodward’s problem wasn’t the only one.

Sky-High Bills

Hitchcock resident Georgia Layva didn’t know what to do when she opened her March power bill and saw the total was more than she made in a month.

Her bill, also from First Choice, said that her two-bedroom house used more than 10,000 kilowatts in one month. Her bill was $2,100.

“There’s no way,” she said. “We weren’t home half the time and we don’t have central air. We weren’t even running the AC.”

She called the company, asking representatives to come out and reread the meter. But First Choice sent her a letter saying the meter reading was correct and sent her a cut-off notice with a $1,400 charge.

Layva said she didn’t understand how she could get a cutoff notice when the company wasn’t done investigating if the meter readings were right. She didn’t get her questions answered, either.

Because of the problems, she also switched to a different electricity company, but she was still worried that she’d have to pay off the $1,400 bill.

The problems have occurred up and down her street. Her sister, who lives on the 4500 block of Heron Street, got a $1,100 bill. Her mother, who lives near her on the 4400 block, had a $600 bill.

“It’s totally off the wall,” Layva said.

When Carlton looked up Layva’s billing account, she said the company realized that the meter had been misread.

She said other people should contact customer service.

Layva will get a corrected bill in the mail, Carlton said.

Fighting Back

Carlton said in light of the two problem bills in the area, First Choice would see if other customers experienced the same problems.

“These two situations were so unique,” she said. “I’ve been working to make sure no one else was affected this same way.”

Carlton said she would also listen to the tapes of the customer service calls to find out what happened.

Woodward said he kept a record of the numbers he called. But despite the frustrations, he said he hoped his situation would remind others to fight back.

“So many people think you can’t fight the big guys and you don’t have a leg to stand on,” he said. “Don’t just let people walk on you just because they have more money. What’s right is right.”

Hadley said it was important for customers to read and keep copies of contracts.

“The fact is, they can use whatever reason they want to to raise the charges,” he said. “They just have to make sure that the customer agrees. What I don’t know is how well people understand the contracts.”

Carlton said the refunds Woodward and Leyva will receive weren’t connected to media exposure.

“The timing is such that we looked into it and saw that we could address it,” she said.

+++

Got A Problem?

File a complaint online at www.puc.state.tx.us or call 1-888-782-8477

====================================

	From Customers	From the press
	Complaint about First Choice Power Posted by Nemo33 Location: Dickinson TX I have been dealing with this "company" (actually nothing more than a criminal gang) for over two years. During that time I have been double-billed on 3 occasions. I have had billing "errors" that they would not acknowledge that have cost me about $900 more than I should have paid. I have had them charge my credit card twice for the same transaction, then refuse to give back the overcharge. Then, when I finally got my $500 back (only by contacting VISA and my bank), they listed my refund in their system as a "bad check", which then hit my credit report. When you call their "Customer Service" you will wait for a long time, maybe more than an hour. Then you will get to speak with a rude person who has only the authority to tell you "no" and to pass the buck to the "local service provider". In my case, the local service provider is Texas-New Mexico Power. First Choice is a wholly-owned subsidiary of TNM. If you tell them that, they will actually lie to you and say that First Choice and TNM are NOT the same company. But it's the same Satan-worshippers running both of these criminal entrprises. In January (2008) I got a gigantic bill, over $1,600 - for a 3 br house with a gas furnace & central heat. Turns out my rate per kwh had quadrupled! Their explanation was "don't worry about it". Yeah, right. (NOTE: If you have an account with First Choice, you will learn to worry about them. You will wonder "what new and weird surprise will they spring on me next?") Then I got a shutoff notice. I called to make arrangements, but was told they could not do so, because I had once written them a "bad check" (from the double charge on my VISA the year before). I had to shut the fuck up and pay. If you complain about them to the state, you will find that they have been "deregulated", and they can pretty much do whatever they want. They are heavy contributors to the Governor, all the top legislators, etc. I have just switched to Spark Powerbank - maybe they will be better, certainly nothing could be worse than First Choice. I do hope that if you live in Texas, and need electricity, you will avoid First Choice. They are the absolute worst utility company in the state. first choice power Complaint won't provide what they promised - electric power company Posted By: Anonymous on 2/7/2002 Location: friendswood, TX When the representative of this company came to us about switching to them when the Texas deregulation took place this year, they promised me that I would stay on Balanced billing right from the start, I asked him twice and he promised us this would happen. I am on a fixed income and travel alot, in and out of the country this is why this was so important for me. I would hate to be out of country and have my family loose the electricity because I didn't get the bill. So I have online banking and scheduled amounts so no matter where I am these sort of bills get paid, but if not on balanced billing my monthly bills would vary , which for me is impossible. This company now refuses to do this until after I am with them a year, impossible for me, I will be out of the country again in a few months. The only thing that saved me was that Reliant Energy of HOuston agreed to re establish my account with balanced billing,gratefully , and saved me a whole lot of grief. I hate sales men, why can't they just tell you the truth? Needless to say, I was glad to now Not be a customer of First Choice power, they are far more like our Last or No choice company Texas buyers of electricty, Beware of this company I never had problems with my power company util First Choice took over the company. It is evident that they only read the meter when they feel like it. Last year my daughter was living with my grandma to help out and the only electricity being used was one light and she was getting 150.00 bills, at which time she called and was told she still had to pay the bill and they would then credit her what she was over charged. My grandma who has had the same address since the 60's and was only late like 2 times and never disconnected was disconnected and sat in a hot house all day during the summer.(P.S)she did not received a pink disconnect bill either, that would have flagged us that something was wrong. All of her bills had been put in the post office mail around the 3rd,(she gets her ssc on the 3rd) and we make out all of her bills and send them. Well all the bills made it to there destination except the First Choice Power bill. To this day it has not surfaced. We called them and paid the bill again and tried to explain what had happened, but they did not want to here it. I ask them to look at her record, but they didnt care and charged her 299 deposit, a disconnect fee, a reconnect fee, a late fee and her usage. The lady at the bank said that they are always loosing checks and that they get complaints regular. Then in January I paid my bill on the last day, online as I have for the last 5 or 6 months, I lost my job and yes i pay it the last day and online to save on gas. I got my confirmation # and didnt think anything about it until the next business day my power was disconnected. I called and they said they didn't get it and now are billing me a 299.00 deposit, a 35.00 disconnect and a 35.00 reconnect fee, a late fee and my usage. Again I tried to talk to them and show I had my confirmation# but they did not care. Then a lady said to call and they could give me a curtesy waver on the deposit but as I figured it was a big no. Also I have lived here almost 7 years and have never used 3000KWH and I have been billed for over 3000 KWH. In addition if you use less KWH they charge more so you never get a brake with this company. These people know the have you by the &^ and there is nothing you can do. I have filed reports with the utilities commission and they never even bothered to contact me. It is a disgrace how these people are bleeding us. In addition these people charge us out the behind and believe they do no wrong and charge us all these fees, but when a little storm or a pole down shuts down our elecricity we get nothing, not disconnect credits etc. These people are bullies and I hope they go out of business. Is there no laws governing these people or can they just continue to rape us. Debbie Sweeny, Texas First Choice Power Complaint First Choice Is A Bad Choice - Electric Nightmare Posted By: dontuse firstchoice on 2/11/2008 Location: texas city, TX I can't believe a company would send a letter out in December saying that they had a problem with their billing throught the year and I owe them another 800 dollars. Tough Sh@# First choice. I paid it and missed my payment day by 2 days and they turned off my power. All I can say, if you have First Choice Power as your power provider your in for a nightmare. These guys are the worst and should be reported to the Texas Attorney Generals office for shady contracting and billing practices.There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a Class Action lawsuit against this company for their shady dealing and I would be the first on to sign up on it. Bogus Contract That You Never Know About - Electric Power Company Posted By: glen on 8/15/2007 I was very surprised to find that I was under a contract with First Choice Power. It seems that this energy provider can send out a notice that gives you some rate plans for power used. This document that is sent you is not a bill but rather a notice to inform you that you have some choices for your power plan. If you discard this notice and do not respond, you are put under contract for a plan that commits you for 2 yrs to First Choice Power. Please do not think it is impossible to be put under a contract that you never signed or acknowledged in any way. What First Choice is saying is that if you do not respond you are under their contract for two years and you will be charged $200.00 if you choose to change power companies during your contract time. Wow is this America or what. I had many conversations with First Choice about my contract that I never signed up for and they are now committed to ruining my credit if this fee is not paid. I asked the rep from First Choice to pick up her used car she had purchased from me and she did not know what I was talking about. So I informed her that I had sent her notice that if she didn't respond to the notice she had gotten in the mail to purchase or not purchase my car that she was under contract to purchase my car. Of course she did not know what I was talking about and of course I told her that this is just how ridiculous it was for First Choice to hold me under such a contract. Imagine if all you had to do to commit someone to contract was to send it in the mail and if you didn't respond you were bound to a contract of any kind. Anyway this is my story and I hope anyone reading this will check with their power company to see if they are under a term contract that will cost you in the end if you try to switch power companies First Choice Power Informative Bills are sky-high - Electric Posted By: eric76528 on 7/19/2004 We switched to First Choice when we moved, hoping it would be better than our old company, but it was worse! Our bill jumped $350 in one month, and when I called to ask why, first, they said "oh, that was part of your last month`s bill", so I paid the bill only to be cut off, without notice, one week later! They claimed I owed them another $222.97, and that was for a deposit that I paid previously! I had no choice but to pay it if I wanted power restored. I`m moving next month, out of their service area...I`ve had enough! First Choice Power.. on top ofg not really receiving a bill for the past couple month of power and then they send one for 8 days that is $170 and it has all these random fees on it that I have never seen before.. then they are trying to charge me twice for the fees.. I have spoken with 6 plus different people and they are all a bunch of damned idiots!!	Customers irate about high power bills By Sara McDonald The Daily News Published April 8, 2007 Keith Woodward Jr. thought something was horribly wrong when he got a $256.85 electricity bill for a month that his business was only open a few days. Turns out, there was. Woodward was one of two Galveston County residents whose electricity bill problems were solved while The Galveston County Daily News worked on this story. During March, 1,075 Texans filed complaints with the Texas Public Utility Commission about their electric companies. In Galveston County, 22 First Choice customers filed complaints about their rates in the past four months. Those complaints came after customers attempted to work out their problems with the electric providers to no avail. Terry Hadley, spokesman for the commission, said customers should file complaints when bills don’t add up and companies don’t answer questions. The Fine Print Hadley said problems sometimes occur when customers don’t understand their contracts. In Woodward’s case, part of the problem was the lack of one. Woodward began calling First Choice Power customer service lines when he got his March bill, showing that his rate increased from 21 cents per kilowatt-hour to 73 cents. Answers weren’t easy to come by. “They kept passing us off,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. All these people I called, they were rude. They were calling us liars. My parents were in tears. We couldn’t even get a supervisor to talk to us.” After nine days of phone calls, a First Choice employee faxed him a letter that the company said he should have gotten in November, explaining the new rate plan. The bottom paragraph of that letter explains another side of electricity deregulation that is just recently affecting businesses. Woodward’s business pays electricity based both on the total power used and how high the usage is at its peak. It’s a demand-based pricing method to compensate for the cost the electricity service provider incurs to supply electricity at peak times. Only since January have companies like First Choice Power, which was under regulated pricing before then, charged those fees. “I don’t want the customers to think we’re taking advantage of them because we’re not,” First Choice pricing and rates manager Scott Cassaday said. “It’s just that under the old system, we weren’t recovering that cost and now we are.” But when First Choice spokeswoman Catherine Carlton looked up account information to answer questions about the new rates and the billing department contacted Woodward about his problems, the real problem came out. Woodward’s demand meter was never reset, so he was paying for a much higher demand charge. Carlton said the meter would be reset and the charges canceled. But Woodward’s problem wasn’t the only one. Sky-High Bills Hitchcock resident Georgia Layva didn’t know what to do when she opened her March power bill and saw the total was more than she made in a month. Her bill, also from First Choice, said that her two-bedroom house used more than 10,000 kilowatts in one month. Her bill was $2,100. “There’s no way,” she said. “We weren’t home half the time and we don’t have central air. We weren’t even running the AC.” She called the company, asking representatives to come out and reread the meter. But First Choice sent her a letter saying the meter reading was correct and sent her a cut-off notice with a $1,400 charge. Layva said she didn’t understand how she could get a cutoff notice when the company wasn’t done investigating if the meter readings were right. She didn’t get her questions answered, either. Because of the problems, she also switched to a different electricity company, but she was still worried that she’d have to pay off the $1,400 bill. The problems have occurred up and down her street. Her sister, who lives on the 4500 block of Heron Street, got a $1,100 bill. Her mother, who lives near her on the 4400 block, had a $600 bill. “It’s totally off the wall,” Layva said. When Carlton looked up Layva’s billing account, she said the company realized that the meter had been misread. She said other people should contact customer service. Layva will get a corrected bill in the mail, Carlton said. Fighting Back Carlton said in light of the two problem bills in the area, First Choice would see if other customers experienced the same problems. “These two situations were so unique,” she said. “I’ve been working to make sure no one else was affected this same way.” Carlton said she would also listen to the tapes of the customer service calls to find out what happened. Woodward said he kept a record of the numbers he called. But despite the frustrations, he said he hoped his situation would remind others to fight back. “So many people think you can’t fight the big guys and you don’t have a leg to stand on,” he said. “Don’t just let people walk on you just because they have more money. What’s right is right.” Hadley said it was important for customers to read and keep copies of contracts. “The fact is, they can use whatever reason they want to to raise the charges,” he said. “They just have to make sure that the customer agrees. What I don’t know is how well people understand the contracts.” Carlton said the refunds Woodward and Leyva will receive weren’t connected to media exposure. “The timing is such that we looked into it and saw that we could address it,” she said. +++ Got A Problem? File a complaint online at www.puc.state.tx.us or call 1-888-782-8477 ==================================== Electricity customers’ complaints are similar Last Updated: 4/23/2007 6:24:00 AM By Sara McDonald The Daily News Published April 22, 2007 Not everyone has problems with their electricity bills, but those who do tend to have the same difficulties. Keith Woodward, whose problems with First Choice Power were featured in an April 8 Daily News article, isn’t the only one to ask what a demand meter is, or why he has one. His concern is one of the most common complaints filed against the company. An open records request of all the Galveston County-based complaints filed against First Choice Power in the past three months shows a pattern of similar complaints. Some customers don’t understand their fluctuating rates, the charges for re-reading meters or why they have the type of meter that seems to charge them for more electricity than they use. Erratic Rates? Customers’ most common concerns dealt with unexplained, fluctuating rates. “We have received a whopping increase from 17.3 cents a KWH to 41.4 cents,” a Texas City customer wrote on March 6. But customers often misunderstand their bill. A typical First Choice power bill will show the average rate paid. Some customers confuse that number with the rate they’ve locked in with the company, which isn’t even on the bill, First Choice spokeswoman Catherine Carlton said. Even when a customer’s rate is guaranteed at 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, the average rate is calculated in with fees, Carlton said. That might make rates seem higher than they are if customers just look at the number on the top of the bill, Carlton said. Any customer is eligible to enter into a guaranteed pricing plan, but First Choice customers who sign up without picking a plan are put under a default plan where prices fluctuate from month to month according to natural gas prices. That might mean exceptionally high summer bills, Carlton said. Misread Meters Other customers complained that their meter was misread. Often, they’re right. Estella Pierre, a disabled Texas City resident who wrote in her complaint letter that she doesn’t run air conditioning or heat because she has to keep her bills down, got a $180 bill in January. That bill said she used about 1,000 more kilowatts than she actually did. After her meter was re-evaluated, she got a $140 refund. “I knew there was no reason it should have been so high,” she said. “I was so glad they got it back to me.” But in the case with some customers, it takes fighting to prove that their sky-high bills were because of broken meters. A string of houses on Heron Street in Hitchcock had inflated meter readings, and residents had to file repeated complaints before their bills were straightened out. Carlson said the company that owns the power lines reads the meters. Which company that is depends on the area. But if a customer asks for their meter to be re-read and the results come back the same, the customer has to pay a $15 fee. That’s something else that caused complaints. Demand Meter Dues Beginning in January, First Choice changed the way it charges some of its commercial customers. Instead of charging based solely on usage, the company adjusted rates based on the highest amount of kilowatts used at one time during the month. It works so that if a welding company used its equipment for a 30-minute period once a month, it would still face charges as if it used that power every day. It’s a way of billing based on the demand load, because Texas New Mexico, the owner of the power lines, charges First Choice for delivering the energy. “Using the old payment structure, we weren’t able to recover what the actual costs of providing power are,” Carlson said. “We were actually charging some customers less than what our costs were.” Texas New Mexico spokeswoman Valerie Smith said commercial businesses that use 5 kilowatts at any one moment are subject to the demand meters. She said they’ve been charging those fees since 2002, but it’s only noticeable now that the retail electric companies are passing on that cost to customers. “Utility companies have to build their systems to meet that peak demand, even if they’re only at that peak three or four times a year,” she said. That practice doesn’t seem fair to Bryan Springer, who owns a pesticide business. The only power is used to light up a 500-square-foot room that wasn’t air-conditioned. “I asked them to take (the demand meter) out and they told me they can’t do that,” he said. “It turns out, if you change electric companies, it doesn’t matter.”