Beware of Electricity Slamming

Beware of Electricity Slamming

Beware of Electricity Slamming

Door-to-Door Energy Sales

As an energy consumer, it had never occurred to me that electricity scams could occur. These scams are more commonly known by the utilities as Electricity Slamming. As an electricity sales agent, I have learned from managing and saving on energy and how to Beware of Electricity Slamming.

Beware of Electricity Slamming, WHEN DOES A SLAM OCCUR?

We, as electricity consumers are always vigilant about how much energy we use, or how much we are paying on our electricity bill.

Door-to-door sales agents take advantage of the need that we have for cheaper electricity. For that reason, the salesperson comes to our door and offers prices that we will not hear on the market, some miracle low rates, and asks us for our name, DOB, phone number, and in some cases social security number.

At this point, we are mesmerized by what the agent is selling, however, we are happy with the current electric provider due to we understand our bills and we think the price is fair. Whatever energy we use, we are happy and we won’t change our energy provider.

In many cases the door-to-door salesperson will hunt for recently moved-in customers, in this case, the new prospect will not want to switch companies because they have already paid a deposit and will like to give the new company a try.

After all of this, the salesperson leaves without making a sale and with our information. What does this mean for us? The salesperson now has the information needed to create an account for the company they work for under our name and make the sale without our knowledge or consent, switching us from our current electric company. Beware of Electricity Slamming

An electricity Slam Happened

When Electricity Slam has occurred, we won’t notice this right away. The first thing we notice will be that our monthly bill has not arrived or that our monthly bill shows FB (Final Bill). When we notice this we question ourselves, why is it a Final Bill if I have not requested to disconnect my services? Or Why haven’t received my monthly bill as usual?

Most of us are too busy to even notice our bills, so we just pay not knowing who is our electricity company, as long as we are current and still have electricity we think there’s nothing to worry about.

For some time, we do not identify that we were into an Electricity Slam. We must pay attention to every single detail in our electricity bill. If we notice any of these irregularities we contact the current REP (Retail Electricity Provider) that we did not choose and that we were not aware we were connected with and try to get this fixed as soon as possible.

The longer it takes to figure this out the harder it is to go back to the original provider.

Contact the PUC (Public Utility Commissioner) at 1888-782-8477 or visit the web page at http://www.puc.texas.gov/consumer/, to get help resolving the issue, if the wrong REP (Retail Electricity Provider) does not want to cooperate. Beware of Electricity Slamming

Steps to avoid being a victim of Electricity Slamming

• Always review your electric bill carefully
• Make sure you know the name of your Electricity provider from day one.
• If a door-to-door sales agent tries to sell you a different electricity provider be sure you learn the name of the company they are selling, the salesperson’s name, and agent id.
• Do not provide any of your information if you are not willing to change your original provider, if the salesperson insists on getting your information after you clearly said no, consider this A RED FLAG!

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            Resources:

http://www.puc.texas.gov/consumer/facts/faq/electricity.aspx

http://www.powertochoose.org/en-us/Content/Resource/FAQ

http://www.powertochoose.org/Content/Files/PDF/electricslamming.pdf