Attention Texas electricity customers with variable rates: If you expect to get walloped when the next bill arrives, Watchdog Nation has a strategy that may get that bill lowered.

As first reported in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column, at the August 2011 meeting of the Texas Public Utility Commission, new Chairwoman Donna L. Nelson held a copy of this previous Watchdog Nation report on Dynowatt and spoke about the Arlington man whose power bill jumped to $1,111 in one month because of electricity rate spikes.

“I’m sure you saw the article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this morning about the gentleman who was with Dynowatt, and it was a variable rate plan,” she said. His rate jumped from 10.6 to 18.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, she explained.

(In the above photo, Texas PUC Chairwoman Donna L. Nelson holds up a Watchdog Nation report from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and asks the enforcement division to look into it.)

“Under the new rules we adopted there were certain disclosures that had to take place on the bill, if you remember. And so this article calls into question whether those actually happened.

“I guess I would like enforcement staff to look into this and make sure that the disclosures that are supposed to be happening are happening.”

There it is! The key to getting a power bill lowered. It’s like that moment in school when the teacher tells students what will be on the test.

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This is a test that some Texas electricity companies will flunk. They may be confused about state requirements detailing how variable rate increases must be disclosed to customers on their bills. That confusion and a failure to comply works to customers’ advantage.

The Texas Retail Electric Scorecard, a widely circulated industry newsletter, reported Nelson’s remarks and outlined for electric companies a summary of the rules. But probably not in time for August bills to be corrected.

For example, certain sentences must appear in 12-point type on a bill. (That didn’t happen on the Dynowatt bill.) Here’s a sample: “Please review the historical price of this product available at (insert specific website address and toll-free telephone number).”

If a customer gets a bill with a price spike but without that sentence about the company website and telephone number, he or she should submit a copy of that bill to the PUC as part of a formal complaint. Regulators will check whether the company followed the rules. If not, the bill will be lowered.

See other requirements in the state rules at tinyurl.com/3gsvwvg.

 The Amigo Energy example

 Here’s what can happen to a company that doesn’t follow the rules.

In 2008, I interviewed then-Amigo Energy founder and CEO Javier Vega about why his company didn’t include rate information on the company’s “facts label” as required. I showed him that state rules weren’t followed when Amigo raised its rate from 16 to 24 cents for a Fort Worth customer.

He answered, “I’m going to scream for a second.” He put me on hold, consulted his staff, returned and said: “I apologize. We’ve been better at this.”

After that, Fulcrum Energy, the company that bought Vega out, reneged on its agreement to keep Vega as an officer in the company. Vega sued for wrongful termination. The trial was held in Houston in July.

Vega says that his 2008 comments to me were one of two reasons cited for his firing.

On Aug. 1, a Houston jury awarded Vega a judgment that, with lawyer fees, could reach $3 million.

Last week, Amigo/Fulcrum was sold to Just Energy, a Texas electricity provider based in Toronto.

Vega’s lawsuit illustrates what can happen behind the scenes at a Texas electric company when operators don’t buy enough electricity before a power spike. That can cause bills for variable-rate customers to jump.

According to Vega’s lawsuit, Fulcrum insisted on a get-tough strategy aimed at customers who owed the company money, even if the charges were incorrect. Vega alleged that Fulcrum co-founder Gerardo Manalac ordered collection letters sent to customers only days after the first bills arrived. He also refused a PUC directive that Amigo rerate the bills.

Manalac previously denied those allegations in an interview.

Eventually, the PUC cited Amigo for numerous violations: not sending bills, refusing to offer payment arrangements to shell-shocked customers, not giving proper notice before an increase and not responding to complaints.

Amigo/Fulcrum paid a $15,000 state fine. Now comes this jury verdict.

The message is clear. An electricity company that raises a variable rate has to follow the rules. It’s up to customers to make sure this happens.

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Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber.

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By Dave Lieber

For me, the good news about Texas electricity is that I have used five different power companies in the last five years and not once has the power gone out for any reason other than bad weather.

Uninterrupted power. That’s about the only good thing I can say.

Otherwise, it’s all bad. Costs are too high. Companies offer such confusing rates and service plans that many Texas consumers feel like victims of bait-and-switch schemes. And those whose electrical provider went bust found themselves slammed into high-cost plans.

The Texas Legislature started this mess in 1999, when it passed a law deregulating the electricity marketplace. Until recently, Texans were paying some of the highest electricity rates in the nation.

State lawmakers met again in 2009 and did not pass legislation that would have made some of the shady marketing practices illegal. Fortunately, the Texas Public Utility Commission issued some new pro-consumer pricing rules that went into in May 2009. Shopping for an electricity contract is now simpler and fairer than before. Click here to read the new rules.

Why should you care? Answer: as I originally shared exclusively with readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram – one of Texas’ finest newspapers – you can save hundreds of dollars a year. When it comes to making your family’s decision about which power company to choose, you have to be your own watchdog. When your current contract is set to expire, you will have to make major decisions:

Will you stay with your current company or switch to an unknown? Should you extend the contract for a year, a half-year, three months or go month-to-month? What about a fixed rate versus a variable rate?

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Here’s The Watchdog’s gift to you – The 2011-12 Guide to Picking the Best Electricity Provider:

1. TXU no longer rules. Get over the idea that TXU Energy, most likely your original provider, is the only company that can offer solid, uninterrupted service. And don’t believe the fallacy that TXU customers get serviced first when power goes out.
2. Oncor Electric Delivery is responsible for maintaining the transmission system. Everybody, TXU and its many competitors, uses them to handle repairs.
3. Switching is good. Act under the assumption that you should switch companies every year. The market is constantly changing.
4. You can find better deals and save hundreds of dollars a year, maybe even more, with this one decision. Electricity is measured by kWh, or kilowatts per hour. If you pay 10 cents a kWh instead of 14 cents, your monthly electric bill could be $100 or more lower.
5. Know your current contract terms. Before you can shop, know what you have. Do you know your kWh rate? It’s on your electric bill, and it might be higher than what’s available now. (In Texas, it ranges from 8 cents to as high as 25 cents.) Also call your provider and ask for the date when your contract expires. Find out, if you don’t know, whether your rate is fixed or variable. Start planning a possible switch two months before a contract expires.
6. Decide whether you want to play it safe or be a gambler. Do you want to lock in a fixed rate that you can afford for a longer period of time? Or are you willing to take a low price now and understand that a variable rate could spike depending on market conditions?
7. Conduct a thorough search. Go to this Web site: www.powertochoose.org. (If you don’t have an Internet connection, visit your public library and ask your librarian for help. Or ask a friend or relative to help you.) Click on “Go Directly to Offers”, and then enter your zip code. Also, check the company’s own Web site. Sometimes the company’s price might be cheaper than powertochoose.org
8. Pick your poison. In the left-side column, under “Rate Type,” pick either fixed or variable. (The Watchdog likes fixed since current market conditions are too volatile.) Under “Price,” type in a range of from 7 cents to 14 cents. That’s a good spread. Then hit submit.
9. Study the results. For the selection cited above, about a dozen companies recently offered rates between 8.9 cents per kWh and 13 cents. Contract lengths varied between three and 24 months. Each service plan comes with links to “Terms of Service,” “Facts Label,” “Signup” and “Special Terms.” When you click on these, you learn the nitty-gritty details.
10. Check out your favorite. After you find a company with a rate and contract length you like, learn more about them. Return to the original page, www.powertochoose.org, and click on “Customer Complaint Statistics.” The link marked “Residential Retail Electric Provider Complaint Scorecard” leads you to a state scorecard showing complaint ratings for a six-month period based on a four-star system, similar to movie ratings. Except, here, you don’t want four stars. Another link on the home page, called “REP Complaint Summary,” shows you what the complaints were about.
11. Check out other sources. If the company comes out good enough on complaints, dig a little deeper. What are angry customers saying about this company? To find out, use an Internet search engine this way: Put the name of the company in between quote marks and then follow it with the word “ripoff.” Do the same with the word “scam.” If only a few results come up from disgruntled customers, don’t worry. But if there are several dozen, do a search for the company’s name and “Better Business Bureau.” You’ll be able to pull up the company’s report in the BBB region of its headquarters.

Final switch tips. When you make your final selection, don’t call your current electricity provider to cancel. That could cause problems. Sign up with the new company, and it will handle the transfer. Try to sign up at least four to six weeks before your plan expires so the overlap between the two billing cycles is negligible. Some people switch too late and pay higher prices during the transition.

Remember, there’s no loss of power when you switch. It happens, and you don’t even know it.

Until the bill comes.

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is available in hardcover, as a CD audio book, ebook and hey, what else do you need. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

Watchdog Nation introduces you to another watchdog. His name is Riley. He’s 14 months old. A Vizsla. A real dog.

From his point of view, it’s easy to see why he might have nipped at the gloved hand that reached over the fence in his back yard in Crowley, Texas.

The hand belonged to a smart-meter installer from Oncor Electric Delivery.

The installer’s other hand reached for his can of HALT! — a dog repellent spray — and fired away.

Riley ran back into his house. His eyes had swollen, and he wiped his head frantically on the carpet. His owners, Carter and Mandy Forbes, didn’t know what had happened. They rushed him to the vet, where the doctor explained that someone had apparently sprayed the dog with repellent. Riley was treated and released. The bill was $90.

Back home after that, Mandy Forbes saw an Oncor installer in the neighborhood. She says she watched him take off his hard hat and butt a neighborhood Chihuahua that was barking at him in the head.

“Did you spray my dog?” she says she asked him.

“I haven’t done it in six months,” he replied.

“Do you have the right to do that?”

“Yes,” he answered. “If we feel threatened.”

She told him what Riley went through. He apologized but said it must have been the other installer working the neighborhood.

The Forbeses contacted Oncor. Days later, the company, which delivers electricity to much of North Texas, agreed to pay the medical bill.

Oncor doesn’t like to pay claims. But it did so in this case because the installer didn’t follow company policy.

“It was really in the spirit of customer service that we decided to pay this claim,” spokeswoman Megan Wright said. “There wasn’t anything legally that would make us pay this claim. But the fact that the meter installer did not knock before he installed the meter, which is not required by law, we felt that we wanted to pay this claim.”

The front-door knock, she said, is “something we like to do as a courtesy.”

When I pressed for more details, she said, “His body was not bit, but he said the dog’s teeth did make contact with his really thick gloves.”

Riley is fine. The installer, however, was reprimanded. “We tell our employees they have to put their safety first,” Wright said. “He had to do what he could to protect himself.”

Previously, I’ve reported how smart-meter installers have the right to climb backyard fences to change out meters and how, during the installation, the power to your home or business will go off for several minutes. I’ve recommended that you install surge protectors on valuable electronics and even consider purchasing a whole-house surge protector, usually best installed by an electrician. Oncor says it doesn’t pay claims on electronics that are ruined by power surges.

As far as dog bites, Oncor says installers have been bitten by dogs 12 times this year and were bitten 22 times last year.

Oncor provided me with photos of installers and the nasty bites they received. The photos are difficult to look at.

Oncor says it trains installers how to handle dogs without spraying them.

“We talk to them about how to spot the danger signs of aggression,” Wright said. “How to walk away. Move slowly and carefully. You don’t look in a dog’s eyes. You do not smile, because you don’t want to show your teeth. The dog will think that’s an aggressive move.

“Never run. You just stay calm and quiet. We also talk to installers about being aware of their surroundings, looking to see if there are any dog toys, dog runs, well-worn paths.

“Our meter readers also carry with them a stick with a little tennis ball on the end of it. The dog will oftentimes attack the tennis ball.

“No one wants to hurt an animal.”

Oncor has almost 2 million smart meters left to install. That’s a lot of back yards to enter — and a lot of watchdogs that have no idea what’s coming.

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Dog bite stats

• 2005 – 43 dog bites
• 2006 – 31 dog bites
• 2007 – 32 dog bites
• 2008 – 27 dog bites
• 2009 – 22 dog bites
• As of 8/1/2010 – 12 dog bites

Source: ONCOR

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

Powerless against the power company

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My Open Letter to Oncor Electric Delivery:

Celeste Bird says she cannot communicate successfully with anyone at Oncor Electric Delivery about the repeated power outages in her Grapevine, Texas neighborhood.

Even before the recent cold weather and heavy snow made the problem worse, she says, the power regularly went out for at least half the neighbors on her street.

“You have to work hard to even get a person at Oncor, and they won’t tell you anything,” Bird said. When she does reach someone, she says, she gets a “from-the-book answer saying maybe next time they will check into it.”

Many complained this month that they couldn’t get information from Oncor about when power would be restored after snow and wind caused half a million residences and businesses to go without electricity, some for an extended period.

These days, with emerging technologies such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s easier than ever to communicate with customers — if you want to. So on behalf of Bird, her neighbors and many others, The Watchdog last week wrote an open letter:

Dear Oncor,

What do you do now to communicate with thousands of frustrated customers who call in with complaints, specifically about power outages and also recent high bills?

From my mail, it appears that these recent weeks are among the most difficult times for Oncor in recent years. I hear about more complaints which you are receiving than ever more. More requests for meter re-reads, questions about smart meters, theories of no-show meter readers and inaccurate meters.

I sense a lot of frustration among your customers. They say it’s difficult to get information from you. They wonder, because they are dealing with an automated phone system, if complaints are received properly. They don’t like the lack of human contact, the inability to give feedback. They don’t like NOT knowing if a power restoration crew is scheduled, when it will come, when power could come back on.

The public wants you to be more accessible, more transparent and more available to help them in their times of need. It seems like you aren’t using technology as best you could. In this age of fast-moving communication, it would seem that Oncor could do more than use automated phone lines to take information.

I wonder why you don’t make this information available on a Web site so we can check the latest. This, as you know, is the most basic form of easily distributed rapid information — for free — and customers are clamoring for it.

I received calls from people who wanted to know how they could find out if their power would be turned on? What do I tell them?

I can’t think of another product we buy each month that we understand less about how you bill and whether the price and quantity are correct. People are supposed to trust your systems and equipment. Yet people feel a loss of power and control of their lives when it comes to electrical power.

The Watchdog

Oncor spokeswoman Carol Peters responded.

She checked Oncor records and confirmed that Bird has complained many times, even to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. But, she said, “there’s no way for us to tell a customer when their power is going to be turned on.”

The great snowstorm of 2010 was Oncor’s worst winter storm ever. Complaints were up, but that was not unexpected, she said.

Rather than dwell on Oncor’s recent unpleasantness, Peters wanted to focus on the future. She promised that greater transparency is coming to Texas’ largest electricity transmission company.

A new Web site is about to be unveiled by the state, working with the large transmission companies, both she and a PUC spokesman told me. Customers will be able to log on and retrieve more detailed information about their electricity usage and bills.

When is this coming?

“It should be announced fairly soon, but it will be the first step toward total visibility on your electric bill,” Peters said. “It’s almost finished.”

The second part of the transparency movement, she said, is the installation of smart meters, scheduled for completion by 2012.

When smart meters are installed, Peters said, customers won’t have to call utilities to report outages. Utilities will already know because a smart meter sends back usage information every 15 minutes.

“This is the brave new world we are heading for,” Peters said. “This is a transformative period for Oncor.”

Until the smart system is installed and while more old-fashioned methods are used, Peters said Oncor is interested in doing “anything we can to improve communication before we deploy” the new meters.

Celeste Bird says she and her Grapevine neighbors can’t wait that long, adding, “Maybe it’s time for some competition if the one choice we have for service can’t provide the type of service we pay for.”

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

The battle cry for residents in a seniors community in Fort Worth, Texas goes like this:

“I’m gettin’ beat ’cause I want to use some heat!”

Residents tried to figure out why their electric bills have doubled in the past few months.

Last week, they called a meeting and invited me. They showed me their bills, almost all of them from TXU Energy. They had a lot of theories about what went wrong — meters not read properly, for example.

After I bit, as I first reported in the Jan. 31, 2010 Dave Lieber column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I gave them my initial expert opinion.

It was bitterly cold in late December. Of course bills go up.

But then I dug deeper into their cases, looking at their bills and asking each resident two crucial questions:

What kilowatt-per-hour rate do you pay?

When does your contract expire?

Almost nobody knew the answers. Their problem, it seems, is much worse than high winter bills. Most likely, these residents are paying more than necessary because they haven’t shopped around for electricity. Unfortunately, many Texans still don’t know how to do that.

We worked on their cases, and in the end, I hope I solved their problem. Best of all, my solution may work for you, too. But before we get to that, let’s listen to a few of the residents:

Martha Beaman: “My bill was $28 in November. Then, in December, it was $256. And for January, it was $233. I am never at home. I work. This is stressful because my wages haven’t gone up as the bill goes up. I have to calculate every penny I earn because my job has been cut back on hours this month. I’m struggling.”

Shirley Stockton: “I knew the cold weather was coming and cranked my heater down to 65. I turned my water heater off through the cold snap, and the bill still went from $36 to $96. I only turn my water heater on every few days when I need it.” (When she called to tell a TXU rep that, she says the rep told her that hot water “is a privilege.”)

Debbie Wilson: Her bill jumped from $78 to $176 to $272: “After I got the high bill for December, I cut my thermostat to 67. I use oxygen at night, so I have to have enough electricity to pay for that. I’d rather go cold than not have my air at night.”

Anita Mayfield: Her bill went from $64 to $149. “I’m getting tired of cooking on a microwave. I wear sweats all the time. I have the thermostat turned down to 60 degrees. I wash in cold water. When you live on a fixed income, you can’t afford this. You don’t know where you are going to pay these extras from.”

Charlie Berry: His bill went from $40 to $176 to $227. “At this rate, by the time I get the next bill, I’m going to have to apply for assistance from the U.S. government just to pay my electric bill.”

Steve Kerr: “During the cold snap I was out of town for three weeks with the heating system turned off.” His bill went from $90 to $146 to $236. He is skeptical about whether the meter was read. “Whether or not it was read — that’s the $64,000 question,” he says.

Oncor spokeswoman Carol Peters said later that the bills are higher because this has been the second-coldest winter in the past two decades. “There’s a 30 percent increase in the heating requirements over last year,” she said. Oncor delivers the electricity through the lines and hires the meter readers. TXU is the residents’ retail provider by their choice.

TXU spokeswoman Sophia Stoller looked at 13 cases of Providence Village residents provided by The Watchdog. All but one seemed accurate, she said. In the questionable case, the initial bill looked too low.

TXU offers several ways for customers to get help with their bills, including a 10 percent discount as part of the Low Income Discount Plan. But you have to ask. TXU Energy Aid helps customers who say they have a hardship, such as loss of job or illness.

When I looked at the residents’ bills, I found that many are paying as much as 13, 14 or 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.

However, last week, the state-run PowertoChoose.org Web site showed the lowest prices I’ve seen — 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

So the quickest way to lower your electric bill is not to turn down a thermostat or turn off a water heater but to learn when your contract expires and shop for a better deal. If there’s a cancellation fee, it will be more than covered in a few months by cutting a 15-cent rate almost in half.

As proof, one Providence Village resident said she paid $250 to cancel her contract before it expired so she could switch to Green Mountain Energy. Her neighbors sighed when Helen Nash reported that her recent bill was only $93.

If you’re not sure about the best way to shop around, I’ve got you covered. I’ve distributed tens of thousands of free copies of my guide showing how to get the best buy in Texas electricity. You can find it by clicking here on “Dave Lieber Guide to Saving on Your Electricity Bill.”

You can also e-mail me at watchdog@star-telegram.com or request a copy at Dave Lieber, Star-Telegram, P.O. Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101.

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What to do If you need help on your electric bill, call 211.

Customers who receive food stamps or Medicaid may qualify for the Lite Up Texas discount or other assistance.

Ask your electric company whether it offers assistance. Also ask to pay a big bill over several months, allowed under law.

On Feb. 3, 2010, Tarrant County Human Services will take applications from those who are retired or on disability and receive no other income. Call 817-531-5620 on Wednesday and ask for an appointment. Only 500 appointments will be scheduled.

Source: Tarrant County Human Services

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Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 2010 edition of his book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, is out. Revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards in 2009 for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber