I read where a Texas resident has filed a class-action lawsuit against Griddy for super high electric bill following last week’s historic low temps. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the case, but on the surface- I’m not sure I can sympathize with the consumer much here. They signed up to pay a variable electric rate driven by supply & demand (which is nothing new). They agreed to share that risk with the power provider. I think the case will get tossed or reduced somehow. If there were deceptive sales practices that influenced the buyers decision- different story.

Your thoughts?

They signed a contract and took the low cost advantage and now they want to back out of the deal.

Nope.

Griddy probably won't be around much longer. Lots of different sorts of lawsuits coming their way.

I can see a rate hike during what happened, what I can't see is cost going from 50$ to 9,000.00 mwh.

seems to me to be the same as a gas station price gouging right after a hurricane or tornado.

both the ranch (I have no idea of the bills) and my trailer at fork are on coop power so I think we are safe.

Peak Power Rate Surge Insurance.

There's my lunch hour idea.

I agree with you in principal. But if the rate escalation is defined in the variable rate plan, then it changes the game alltogether. Contracts have consequences.

My business

Variable rate with notice or no notice?

So what it is hard to get $ from something that is bankrupt.

That is one of the advantages of using Energy Ogre, they won't sign you up for any variable rates. They use fixed rate providers only.

My initial reaction is that they signed up for the variable rate. The contract was black and white. In the past 520 weeks someone with a variable rate would probably have come out ahead of a fixed rate 518 of the those weeks by 1 or 2 cents per KW on average. Last week and a week in August of 2019 is when they would have lost everything and then some on the plan.

My only counter argument for the consumer is that they could argue negligence against the energy providers. The storm was forecasted a week in advance. They should have taken the necessary precautions to protect power generation and make more capacity available. Their failure to do so led to the huge spike in the price per KW.

In general though I don't have much sympathy for them. They gambled, they lost.

One scenario is the customer contract ended and of course there isn't any notification or indication on the statement that anything changed (other than the higher rate). As a result the customer was defaulted to a m-t-m variable rate.

I was caught in this situation at my business after a 4 year contract ended and was in the process of moving to a new contract but didn't get it completed before the deep freeze hit. The provider made the gamble, not me.

how can they charge you for the $9,000 MWs if you didn't have power at that time? If your power was off you couldn't
have used any of the high dollar MWs.

Very happy with them so far!

That was my first thought.

Plaintiffs say you did not due YOUR due diligence to protect me from a known high risk event. YOU were trying to save money and did so at my expense ultimately. I got exposed to YOUR risk taking. You did not follow best practices and recommendations from ERCOT (they have their own problems coming) and now I am to blame? I have to pay?

YOU in fact gambled and lost and now expect me to eat it? No way pal!! Go to hades and here are my 168 lawyers ready to make your life hell for the next few years.

**Not saying I agree with that. But I can for sure see that being an argument.