Customer Protection
When buying electricity, it's extremely important to know what you're buying and how much you're really paying. But without an in-depth understanding of industry terms, this can be extremely difficult.
Between the power generator and your meter, electricity passes through a lot of hands. And because of that, no fewer than twenty different fees and charges are added to the basic wholesale cost of generation.
Some companies strip these charges from a quote in order to present a low price per kilowatt-hour, but then return those line-item charges back into your bill after the contract is signed. This is legal, but at PUB, we don't consider it ethical.
Specialized Legal Council
We retain the services of a highly qualified team of attorneys with extensive experience in utility law — experience gained in service with state regulatory agencies, including the Public Utility Commission, as well as legislative committees and municipal governments. To protect your interests, these experts evaluate all contract versions for several key things:
- Ensures that most regulatory charges, such as those mandated by ERCOT, are included in the contract language.
- Identifies the type of contract being offered — fixed rate, variable rate, indexed rate or even a combination.
- Uncovers hidden fees, penalties, loopholes and ambiguous terms that could trip you up later. (For example, an automatic renewal clause that could commit you to another year at a much higher rate or a material change clause allowing the REP to change their rate.)
This detailed contract evaluation process protects you from deceptive pricing practices and enables you to compare bids equally. This is an area with which most attorneys cannot help. Electricity contracts are filled with a mind-boggling collection of complex, unfamiliar, even ambiguous terms. It takes specialists like PUB to safeguard your interests.
Evaluating the Power Industry
Our commitment to your protection goes beyond contract evaluation. We continuously evaluate the whole industry. We maintain a presence in Austin to monitor regulatory changes that could affect your rights. We've also participated in more than a hundred PUC filings to make sure our clients — present and future — are protected.
As an example, because of PUB's efforts, more than 400 small businesses in Texas have collected an estimated 1.1 million dollars in refunds from two Retail Electric Providers.
We also track the performance of every Retail Electric Provider in Texas, including complaints lodged with the PUC, and post this information in a report card on our website.
At PUB, we believe in "power to the people."
