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Oncor has overseen the installation of nearly 2 million smart meters in its service territory. Standard Utility has installed hundreds of thousands.

Oncor says Marzano, who lives in Dalworthington Gardens, did not send in the required paperwork. A claims adjuster needed an invoice showing the cost of repairs. Marzano did send an invoice for the first part of repairs, then sent an estimate for the rest. She hoped to receive a payment and use it for the rest of the repairs.

It was a standoff.

Oncor says it’s unlikely that the smart-meter installation damaged the pool equipment anyway.

And, generally, if an installation does cause damage, a contractor’s insurance pays the claim, Oncor says.

Tom Brockenbush, Standard Utility’s chief financial officer, told me in an interview, “Typically, in the past, our liability goes to the meter.”

If anything is damaged inside the house, “then we would not be responsible.” Complaints about smart-meter installations are very rare, he said.

After he studied the case file, Brockenbush sent an e-mail with more information. He called the confusion with Marzano unfortunate and described it as “a breakdown in communication between all of the parties involved.”

“Neither Standard Utility nor Oncor discovered any evidence to suggest that the damages were the result of either an Oncor equipment failure or an installation problem by Standard Utility.

“Nonetheless, it was Standard Utility’s decision to pay the claim to ensure a positive customer experience.”

A Standard Utility representative recently delivered the rest of the $2,000 claim to Marzano. She says that she is happy and that without a Watchdog intervention, “we would still be going round and round.”

Oncor says a smart-meter installation should cause a brief loss of electricity — “a blink” — followed by a reconnection that should not cause an electrical surge.

A spokeswoman said the company appreciates being notified of any problems with its contractors and recommends leaving a detailed message at the AskOncor.com website.

Aside from smart-meter installations, remember that Oncor, unlike power companies elsewhere, does not provide its customers with any surge protection.

The Watchdog recommends that all sensitive equipment, such as computers, kitchen appliances, TVs and stereo equipment, be connected to individual surge protectors. For added protection, have an electrician install a “whole-house surge protector” on the main line to protect appliances as well as phone and cable lines.

More Watchdog Nation reports on smart meters:

Meet the dog that hates smart meter installers

Here’s the latest on electricity smart meters

How to protect your home from electricity surges

Dave Lieber shows Americans how to fight back against corporate deceptions in his wonderful book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong. Are you tired of losing time, money and aggravation to all the assaults on our wallets? Learn how to fight back with ease — and win. Get the book here.

Read The Watchdog Nation manifesto here!

Tags: meter installation, Oncor, smart meter, smart meter installation
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How a petition shows an electric company who’s the boss

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

The right to petition for a “redress of grievances” is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Although it applies to the right of Americans to petition the government, The Watchdog showed a neighborhood how to use the concept to prompt a company to fix a problem lasting more than 40 years.

Since the mid-1960s, when homes on Wosley, Winifred and Woodway drives in Fort Worth’s Wedgwood East neighborhood were built, residents have complained about regular power outages.

“It just went on for all these years,” Lanelle Phipps told me. “It was reported and reported, and they would say they fixed it, but it didn’t take more than 10 drops of rain for the power to go off.”

Last year, Phipps and a neighbor, Karen Erickson, decided they had had enough. The last straw for them was the February 2010 snowstorm.

“We sat here for 53 hours in the dark freezing when all of our neighbors around us had power,” Erickson said.

She called Oncor Electric Delivery, which services power lines. “You can’t get anybody. You can’t get a human voice,” she said.

One time she did. “He laughed it off and said, ‘Oh, we deal with that all the time.’ He was no help. He just told me to keep calling, keep calling.”

When Erickson described the problem to me, I wrote back with a plan:

“Easiest thing to do is organize your neighbors. Get everyone to sign a petition. Send the info to me, and I will pass it on to Oncor. … With the fuss you will kick up, Oncor will realize that they need to come out and actually fix the problem. It most likely will work.”

Phipps wrote the petition and cover letter, which stated, “Surely in all these years with all the reported outages, the problem has been (or could be) identified. …This petition is a formal request for the electric service companies to fix the problem — whatever it is. It has gone on far too long for any neighborhood to simply sit back and wait for the next inconvenient event.”

Erickson walked the petition door to door. She worked hard to catch everyone but eventually she did: 29 homeowners. Everyone signed the petition. It took seven months.

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In November, I passed the petition on to Oncor. Good things happened after that. Oncor staffers held a meeting and reviewed the neighborhood’s power history back to the beginning. When an Oncor employee contacted Phipps, she told Phipps, “I guess your petition got in the hands of the right people.”

An Oncor representative told me that the neighborhood had eight outages in the past year, five caused by weather and three for other reasons.

In December, Oncor began trimming trees. Oncor said that’s the easiest and best way to minimize weather-related outages. But the neighbors knew that it was more than that.

Once the trees were trimmed, there were still outages, Phipps said. She insisted that other measures be tried. More workers showed up.

As Erickson wrote to me, “They admitted that a lot of our equipment is out of date, and they will be updating with new equipment. They went back to Day One, and based on the number of complaints and outages, have decided that the equipment has always been defective.”

Oncor trucks remained in the neighborhood for several weeks. Among the work they did: Damaged lightning arresters were replaced; wiring was replaced; new cross arms and holding arms were installed.

Since then, there hasn’t been a problem.

Oncor says that if you have a problem, visit AskOncor.com and send a message from that site. Or call the Ask Oncor Hotline at 888-875-6279.

But I like the petition idea. If the story of excessive power outages in this neighborhood rings true to what’s happening in your neighborhood, why not try it same way? Get everyone in the neighborhood to sign a petition.

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Tags: blackouts, brownouts, electricity, electricity goes out, Oncor
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How to fight your electric bill

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

How to fight your electric bill

People complain about high electricity bills. Often they’re ignored. Here’s how a prosecutor shows you how to take care of bad customer service reps who don’t care.

A Texas “power” story

Power plants across Texas fail. People have to cope with rolling blackouts. That makes Watchdog Nation long for the good old days when people complained about smart meters and their bills going up. Good old days? That would be before the great ice storms of 2011 in North Texas.

Although The Watchdog can’t solve the rolling blackouts, we will continue to shine a light on the Texas electricity system.

Customer service is questionable

Today’s victims, er, electricity customers: John and Mary Brasher of Wichita Falls. John Brasher is a 25-year veteran prosecutor in the Wichita County district attorney’s office who handles appeals. After his smart meter was installed, his next bill came in four times higher than the previous month’s. So the couple launched an appeal with TXU Energy.

As readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, Mary Brasher called customer service. She got no help. “I knew I was talking to someone overseas. His phrases didn’t sound right. I felt like he was reading me a canned answer. He kept repeating the same phrases over and over,” she said.

Next, the couple wrote TXU. They even diagnosed their own problem, telling TXU that their old meter reading was most likely inaccurate.

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Difficulty communicating

Here are excerpts from their ensuing correspondence.

TXU: “Dear Mr. Brasher … the meter was accurately read.”

Brasher: “Did you even read my last email? … Where is the old meter? Can it be tested?”

TXU: “All bill dates and due amounts are continuing as normal.”

Brasher: “You are absolutely wrong. … That is crazy, and I do not appreciate your canned answer one bit. I am notifying the Texas Public Utility Commission. Additionally, I would appreciate a chance to review and read the old meter myself. I am sure you have it stored some place. I expect to receive a real answer from you, not a canned answer.”

You can be an electricity company prosecutor, too

That didn’t happen, so John Brasher filed a complaint with the PUC: “TXU will provide us no information about whether the ‘old’ meter can be located and read. … We would like a reasonable explanation, rather than the arrogant and condescending responses we have been given by TXU.”

The prosecutor continues, “If, in fact, the old meter can no longer be read merely because it has been removed, then that is a loophole that needs to be closed. Otherwise, TXU can claim any electrical usage it wants to without the consumer having any recourse. We can only assume that this is in fact what TXU is doing, since it will not provide any answers to us.”

His PUC complaint got everyone’s attention, and finally the facts came out.

Who is to blame?

Oncor Electric Delivery says its reader misread the Brashers’ meter two weeks before the old meter was swapped for the smart meter. Oncor realized the error and notified TXU. But TXU didn’t tell the Brashers.

Turns out the old meters are stored in a warehouse, and photographs are taken showing the final reading. Until PUC got involved, though, nobody bothered to tell the Brashers that. “Seems to be a straightforward question,” Mary Brasher said.

TXU spokesman Michael Patterson accepts blame: “Obviously, we fell a little short. … There was a disconnect here, and I know that’s frustrating to the customer.” (Yes, he said “disconnect.”)

“The rep that responded didn’t connect the dots that maybe there was an issue when they changed the meter.”

TXU is tracking the error, he says, and spreading the word among its personnel about what went wrong. As for taking the complaint to the PUC, he adds, “We certainly don’t want that for a number of reasons.”

The Brashers’ bill is now reconciled. But the couple and TXU aren’t. The Brashers say they’re switching electricity companies.

There’s good news here. If part of the problem is, in fact, canned answers from overseas customer service reps who don’t always understand the complexities of the company they serve, TXU offers a better solution: The company has announced that it is adding new call centers in Abilene and Lubbock and expanding a call center in Irving. The moves are supposed to create and save 500 jobs.

Where are the remaining TXU customer service jobs?

“We don’t disclose specific numbers for our customer contact centers, but with this reconfiguration, the company will have a 70 percent domestic, 30 percent Latin America mix,” Patterson said.

Watchdog Nation has previously reported that TXU call centers were situated in Bangalore, India; Krakow, Poland; and the Philippines.

Those overseas outposts are gone — replaced, Patterson says, by what TXU calls “near-shore operations.” These, he said, are “in Spanish-speaking regions, and they consistently provide us with cost-effective and high-quality service for our customers.”

The Brashers say they don’t care who answers the phone as long as they get correct and honest answers.

Dave Lieber, The Watchdog columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is the founder of Watchdog Nation. The new 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

Available in hardcover, on iTunes (audio), Kindle and iPad

Tags: customer service, electricity bill, Oncor, outsource, PUC, TXU Energy
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Texas changes rules for electricity disconnections for ill customers

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Every so often I hear a heartbreaking complaint about how someone’s electricity is disconnected even though they depend on it to operate lifesaving medical equipment.

Sometimes people didn’t know that they have to register their medical condition to get special protection to prevent a quick power cutoff.

Other times, the company that sells the electricity, or Oncor, which distributes the power, made a mistake.

Fewer than 3,000 of Oncor’s more than 3 million area customers are registered for medical protection from cutoffs. I’m sure more would register if they were aware of the rules. That’s especially important since Jan. 1, 2011 when new rules took effect.

As readers of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, as part of those rules issued by the Public Utility Commission, a new class of customers has been created called “chronic care” customers. They are defined as having a “serious medical condition that requires electric heating or cooling to prevent the impairment of a major life function through a significant deterioration or exacerbation of the person’s medical condition.”

What does this mean? If you need heat in the winter or cool air in the summer because of your weakened medical condition, for whatever reason, you can sign up, with doctor approval, for special protection.

This replaces what was called “disabled” protection for those who could, according to the old definition, “become seriously ill or more seriously ill” with a loss of power.

Under the new rules, people with a chronic condition can — with doctor’s support — receive the designation for 90 days or a year before a renewal notice comes.

Read a side-by-side comparison of the old rules and new rules here, prepared by Linnea Nasman of the National MS Society: Lone Star.

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As a safety measure, the customer and a secondary contact must be notified by letter and e-mail before the power is cut off. A disconnection notice is sent out 21 days in advance instead of the standard 10 days.

The second protected class consists of those in the critical-care program. That’s now defined as a customer who is “dependent on electricity to sustain life.” Example: Someone who needs a respirator to breathe. (A person who needs refrigeration for medical supplies would be a chronic-care customer.) The prohibition against disconnection for critical-care customers is 63 days.

Electricity companies are no longer responsible for collecting information about a customer’s medical condition. Customers who want to enroll in these programs must get the forms from their retail electricity providers. But the forms are now to be sent to Oncor, which will collect all information.

That takes electricity companies out of it. Previously, some electricity companies tried to decide which customers had valid medical reasons. That’s gone.

From now on, a simple doctor’s approval gets you through the door. If there is a question about an applicant, the customer gets immediate protection while the application is examined.

Texas is one of a few states that doesn’t offer a general medical exemption for those who can’t pay their bills because of a health issue, says Carol Biedrzycki, leader of Texas ROSE, a group that supports affordable electricity.

Electricity companies I checked with expressed no complaints about the new rules.

PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said the changes will provide consistency across the state.

These programs don’t exempt customers from paying their bills. They provide only a delay. And these new rules apply to disconnection only.

Current customers with medical protection don’t need to complete new forms until they receive renewal notices; they are grandfathered in.

Oncor suggests that critical-care customers have a backup generator in case something goes wrong. “While Oncor will do everything we can to prioritize [for these customers], no amount of preparation can safeguard against any type of power outage,” spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar says.

Tags: electric disconnect, Oncor, Texas electricity rules, Texas Public Utility Commission
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Guide to Saving on Your Electricity Bill

Monday, December 27th, 2010

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:

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.
Oncor Electric Delivery is responsible for maintaining the transmission system. Everybody, TXU and its many competitors, uses them to handle repairs.
Switching is good. Act under the assumption that you should switch companies every year. The market is constantly changing.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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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