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electricity

New York Regulators Approve Unprecedented ConEd Rate Hike

By consumeristcarey 9.8.07

Staffers at the New York State Public Service Commission have signed off on ConEd’s plan to impose the largest rate hike in the company’s history. ConEd asked for $1.2 billion, but PSC staffers think the utility is entitled to only $618 million. New Yorkers already pay some of the highest electricity bills in the nation.

“This is all part of the sham that goes on with every rate hike request,” said Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat who sits on the Assembly’s power committee and who has criticized the utility for its response to the 2006 power failure in his borough. “Con Edison asks for more than it expects to get,” he said. “The P.S.C. rides in on its white horse and takes credit for slashing the request. But the end result is still what Con Edison wanted all along.”

energy relief

Son Keeps Retired Mother From Boiling In Atlanta By Beseeching WaMu Executive Customer Service For Overdraft Mercy

By consumerist.com 8.14.07

“I’m not quite sure how my almost-septuagenarian, fastidious, wheelchair-bound, Social Security Disability-stipend mother did it, but she forgot to list a large utilities check in her register and managed to spend over $400 that she didn’t have. For a total of TWENTY overdraft and NSF charges (at $32 a charge). Between the overdrafts, the unpaid checks (and the bounce fees on the payee side of the equation), she’s managed to tally up more than $1800 in unforeseen debt in the last two weeks. She only gets about $1000 a month, and her last check was deposited before we knew how much trouble she was in, paying this emergency debt down to about $-330 in her checking account and $500 in outstanding bounced checks and fees, and leaving her no money for utilities and no friends or relatives to beg for help from…”

electricity

Lower Your Electricity Bill With The Energy Joule Monitor

By cwalters 7.27.07

Sure, the Kill-a-Watt power meter is great for helping you measure just how many little lightning bolts your appliances are eating every day (confession: we don’t really know how electricity works), but the new Energy Joule network monitor provides an entirely different level of feedback, so that you can throttle your consumption at times when energy is most expensive.

electricity

By consumeristcarey 7.25.07

../../../..//2007/07/25/comed-will-refund-1-billion/

ComEd will refund $1 billion to Illinois customers battered by rising electricity rates. The average customer can expect savings of $7 per month, plus a $50 credit.

california

By consumerist.com 7.24.07

../../../..//2007/07/24/craigslist-netflix-and-several-other/

Craigslist, Netflix and several other websites are down following six successive power outages in San Fran’s SOMA ‘hood. [Boing Boing]

undercover at idt energy

Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: Table Of Contents

By consumerist.com 6.12.07

In case you missed any of 7-part undercover report on IDT-Energy, Midtown Promotions, and the fabulous worlds of energy resale and multi-level-marketing, here’s a recap:

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: The Confession

By consumerist.com 6.8.07

After only three days with Midtown Promotions, I could already tell that I’d wait weeks, maybe months or a full year before coming upon hard evidence of fraud, if I found any evidence at all. After leaving James and Doreen in the Bronx, I took the afternoon off and went to work on these diaries.

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: The Meltdown

By consumerist.com 6.7.07

From the moment I met up with James, and Doreen, who was going our way, things began to fall apart. Eric told me to follow James, not Carl, who was going solo. I was to listen to James’ instructions, follow his example, and go to wherever he decided we should spend the day. Today was Mt. Vernon, NY, almost 90 minutes from the offices of Midtown Promotions.

undercover at idt energy

Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: Status Report

By consumerist.com 6.7.07

If you’re just now tuning in, we’ve been doling out daily pieces of our multi-part investigation into IDT-Energy. They’re an energy reseller in the New York area and we’ve received multiple complaints about their salesperson’s dressing as ConEd workers and doing other funny stuff at the door to get people to sign over. So we sent in Brian Fairbanks undercover to get hired at Midtown Promotions, a direct-sales marketing company IDT-Energy contracted to get subscribers.

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: The Meeting

By consumerist.com 6.6.07

Before the morning meeting started, I left my man-purse on a set of boxes right by the blackboard, with the microphone discreetly poking out of the pocket.

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: Let's Get Juiced

By consumerist.com 6.5.07

I staggered into Midtown Promotions at 10am on Wednesday. Seeing as how people were only trickling in for the morning meeting, the receptionist and another office assistant gave me some papers to fill out and sign. (Note: all spelling errors/typos are as they appeared…)

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Door To Door Energy Resellers Fail To Deliver Promised Savings

By consumerist.com 6.4.07

The NY Post ran a good article looking into whether the savings promised by door-to-door energy resale reps like IDT Energy ever really materialize for subscribers:

“I’ve had complaints from residents, as well as small businesses, who have unwittingly switched to a different energy provider and seen their bills go through the roof,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens).

One Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, IDT customer – a bartender who gave her name as Carmel – said her electric bill jumped from $40 to $70, and she is anxious to cancel.

escos

IDT Energy Starts At 7% Discount, Switches To Variable After 2 Months

By consumerist.com 6.4.07

While scanning the collateral Brian picked up in his investigation, we nearly choked on this gem buried in their terms and conditions: it says that you’ll get 7% savings for the first two months, but after that, there’s no telling whether your bill will be higher or lower than what it would be with ConEd (click to enlarge image).

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: The Day Of O

By consumerist.com 6.4.07

I sat in the offices of Midtown Promotions, watching the receptionist field calls from job prospects, still surprised at having been one of those callers not even twenty-four hours prior.

electricity

Six Tips To Cool Your Energy Bill

By consumeristcarey 6.2.07

FreeMoneyFinance has six tips to keep your energy bill from overheating this summer:

utilities

How ESCos Are Supposed To Work

By consumerist.com 6.2.07

While we’re talking about IDT Energy and Con Ed and Midtown Promotions and DS-MAX, let’s learn about another acronym, ESCos, which stands for “energy service companies” (the kind of company IDT Energy is).

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Consumerist Undercover At IDT Energy: The Job Interview

By consumerist.com 5.31.07

Midtown Promotions has no yellow pages entry, no website, and no apparent internet job postings. Cruising their profile on Rip Off Report, a site where, natch, consumers file complaints against companies they feel ripped them off, I found a number for Midtown Promotions main office. It took several discussions with the editor of The Consumerist before we felt we nailed down the approach to the first phone call…

escos

Always Be Closing: IDT Energy Salesmen Interrupt Man In Shower

By consumerist.com 5.30.07

Max from Queens tells us what it’s like to have IDT Energy knocking on your door:

My front buzzer rang a little while ago while I was in the shower. I figured it was UPS, and that my roommate would go out to get it. A short while later, the bell on my apartment went off, and I guessed that he had forgotten to grab his keys on the way out. So I grabbed a towel, and went to let him in. Instead of my roommate, there was some dude with a binder.

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