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NRG-Owned Retail Provider To Pay $250,000 Under Settlement With Texas PUC Staff
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US Retailers, LLC (USR) would pay $255,462 under a settlement agreement with Staff of the Texas PUC to resolve alleged violations of 16 TAC § 25.475(c)(1), due to the alleged charging of a disconnection notice fee which exceeded the amount listed in an Electricity Facts Label
US Retailers, LLC provided the following statement concerning the matter:
"The settlement concerns a disconnection notice fee discrepancy that was discovered in 2023. For certain customers, the EFL identified the disconnection notice fee as $10 while the TOS identified the disconnection notice fee as $20, and over a two-year period the higher $20 fee was charged. In addition to the penalty $255,462, US Retailers has already refunded the difference to customers where possible. US Retailers has also agreed to donate an amount equivalent to what the customers who could not be refunded would have received to bill payment assistance agencies."
--- Statement from US Retailers, LLC
According to the settlement, "From September 1, 2021, to August 31, 2023, USR’s dba Cirro Energy (Cirro) utilized an Electricity Facts Label (EFL) which identified the disconnection notice fee as $10 while the Terms of Service (TOS) identified the disconnection notice fee as $20."
The settlement states, "During this period, Cirro assessed disconnection notice fees against 43,227 customers on approximately 109,973 occasions at the $20 fee listed in the TOS."
Under 16 TAC § 25.475(c)(1)(A), all written, electronic, and oral communications -- including all advertising, websites, direct marketing materials, billing statements, TOS, EFL, Your Rights as a Customer documents (YRAC), and, if applicable, prepaid disclosure statements (PDS) -- distributed by a REP or aggregator must be clear and not misleading, fraudulent, unfair, deceptive, or anti-competitive.
The settlement states, "Between September 1, 2021, to August 31, 2023, USR violated 16 TAC § 25.475(c)(1)(A) by providing communications in Cirro’s TOS and EFL which were unclear, unfair, misleading and deceptive."
US Retailers, LLC issued refunds to affected customers. For customers who could not be refunded (e.g., due to lack of forwarding address), US Retailers, LLC will donate an amount equivalent to the customer’s refund to bill payment assistance agencies. Between these two actions, US Retailers, LLC will have disgorged all amounts attributed to the discrepancy between the disconnection notice fee in its EFL and TOS.
The settlement states that USR has corrected the discrepancy and implemented the following corrective measures:
a. USR has updated its customer records to ensure the impacted customers are assessed a $10, rather than a $20, disconnection notice fee in the event a disconnection notice is issued to the customer due to nonpayment.
b. USR has removed references to the disconnection notice fee from its EFL to eliminate the possibility of a discrepancy between its EFL and TOS regarding the amount of its disconnection notice fee. The EFL directs customers to specific sections of the customer’s TOS which discloses the amount of nonrecurring fees, like the disconnection notice fee.
c. USR has reviewed its disconnection notices, which also list the disconnection notice fee, to ensure consistency between the disclosed fee amounts.
d. In the event USR changes its disconnection notice fee in the future, it has implemented additional levels of internal review to ensure consistency between the fee disclosed in the customer’s TOS and other customer facing documents provided to the customer, as well as the fee ultimately assessed to the customer. Any change to the disconnection notice fee would apply only to new customers, unless appropriate notice is provided to existing customer pursuant to 16 TAC § 25.475(d)(3).
The settlement states that PUC Staff believes, "The violations are serious in nature because they created a potential hazard to the economic welfare of the public. The EFL is the first document to which most customers refer for a summary of the facts about their electric plan. By charging customers at a higher disconnection notice fee than the customer may have expected, USR created a potential financial burden on its customers. The difference, which was refunded by USR, represents money that customers did not have access to until January 11, 2024."
Docket 56637
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May 28, 2024
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Copyright 2024 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com
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