News Stories
Sponsored by Earth Etch. Regulatory insight and compliance solutions for today’s energy markets.
Direct Energy Files Testimony Supporting Of Settlement With PUCO Staff
On March 11, 2024 an attorney examiner filed a motion for an extension of time to file testimony until March 15, 2024
Previously on March 8, 2024 Direct Energy filed a joint motion and memorandum in support to extend the testimony deadline.
This proceeding was initiated to consider a proposed settlement agreement between supplier Direct Energy and PUCO Staff, regarding allegations raised by Staff in a letter to the supplier in May of 2021. Staff said it had reviewed “complaints of misleading and incomplete information, and customers disputing their enrollment with Direct Energy. Based on this review, Staff has determined that representatives of Direct Energy provided misleading and deceptive information to consumers; that Direct Energy failed to maintain accurate records; and that Direct Energy’s enrollment information is incomplete.”
As previously reported, under the terms of the proposed settlement, Direct Energy has or will have: (1) provided Staff with a compliance plan covering enrollment practices, an auditing process for enrollments, and any corrective actions to be implemented by Direct Energy; (2) submitted to Staff a list of certain sales and marketing vendors and agents and information on their attempted/successful enrollments; (3) reviewed all door-to-door enrollments according to a protocol laid out in the settlement; (4) provide all telemarketing calls and vendors to Staff during a specified time period; (5) reviewed all marketing and sales scripts for compliance with rules and submitted updated versions of these documents to Staff for review. If Direct Energy modifies its scripts in the six months following the PUCO’s approve of the settlement, Direct Energy will submit the updated scripts to Staff; and (6) paid a $275,000 fine.
Stipulation & Recommendation (06/10/2022)
22-0583-GE-UNC (06/10/2022)
