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Under Settlement Recommendation With TPUC Staff US Retailers Agrees To Pay $250,000 For Alleged Charging Disconnection Fees
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.
Commission Staff recommends, and USR agrees to pay, an administrative penalty of $255,462 in resolution of the violations acknowledged in this agreement and in the attached proposed order.
Excerpts From Settlement Agreement And Report To The Commission:
Violations of PURA §§17.004(a)(1) and 39.101(b)(6) 7.
7.Under PURA §§ 17.004(a)(1) and 39.101(b)(6), all buyers of retail electric service are entitled to protection from unfair, misleading and deceptive practices.
- From September 1, 2021, to August 31, 2023, USR violated PURA §§ 17.004(a)(1) and 39.101(b)(6) on 109,973 occasions by assessing a higher disconnection notice fee than the disconnection notice fee listed on the customer’s EFL.
Violations of 16 TAC # 25.475(c)(1)(A)
- 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.
- 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.
Corrective Action
- USR issued refunds to affected customers, which was completed on January 11,2024. For customers who could not be refunded (e.g., due to lack of forwarding address), USR will donate an amount equivalent to the customer’ s refund to bill payment assistance agencies. Between these two actions, USR will have disgorged all amounts attributed to the discrepancy between the disconnection notice fee in its EFL and TOS.
- USR has corrected the discrepancy described in this agreement and implemented the following corrective measures to prevent violations of PURA §§ 17.004(a)(1) and 39.101(b)(6) as well as 16 TAC §25.475(c)(1)(A) from occurring, and will maintain such measures going forward:
- 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.
- 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.
- USR has reviewed its disconnection notices, which also list the disconnection notice fee, to ensure consistency between the disclosed fee amounts.
- 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 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.”
Settlement Agreement And Report To The Commission (05/28/2024)
56637 (05/28/2024)
(Settlement Agreement And Report To The Commission Regarding Us Retailers, LLC’s Violations Of Pura §§ 17.004 And 39.101, Relating To Customer Protection Standards, As Well As 16 TAC § 25.475(c)(1), Related To General Disclosure Requirements)
