National Power Company: fixed rate... or is it? Looks like bait & switch. (Houston: hotel, new house)

[Beto]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

This reminds me of that commercial... "And these customers we have? We've gotta get new ones, they're always angry!"

That's the cable commercial?

[tstone]

HAHA, now this site:

National Power Company | Texas Electricity

where people are writing in as to how they were duped, is now getting positive comments. The IP addresses have been traced back to National Power Co!!!!

[Wysiwyg]

dang that sucks. I have a feeling Riverway is going to screw me around next month. Its taking them a while to make th e official switch, thats not a good sign :\

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by tstone

HAHA, now this site:

National Power Company | Texas Electricity

where people are writing in as to how they were duped, is now getting positive comments. The IP addresses have been traced back to National Power Co!!!!

They can't at least have their flacks post that stuff from home? Jesus.

[tstone]

That's what I was thinking. Or at least get behind a proxy server before firing away. Pretty dip**** move if you ask me. Then again, apparently that describes all the business moves they've made.

[Mr. Football]

I would take screenshots of those pages in case this thing goes to court (which I think it will). National Power company representatives are fraudulently posing as customers on that site.

Somebody call Wayne Dolcefino.

[pnc66]

We received one of those letters too. I'm not sure what our alternatives are because all the rates are really high at the moment. Our 12-month contract with National Power is up in August. I think this is awfully convenient how they pull this right at the start of the summer season.

(rant mode on) Someone please explain to me how this deregulation stuff is supposed to help the consumer? I have yet to see any real competition in the rates - nothing has yet to match the rates we paid in Waller County to the electric co-op. Electric co-ops aren't deregulated - and ours was SO much cheaper than anything I've seen since moving back to the Cy-Fair area almost 2 years ago.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for an electric company that doesn't charge an arm and a leg? Good grief! I can't afford these sky-high rates with the cost of everything else going up like it is.... everything but my salary that is. (rant mode off)

[studiobtm]

I spent the last several years working for an electric co-op in Wyoming. Our rates there were less than 6.5 cents a kwh and our average distance between customers was over 5 MILES. It is very expensive to run line in that sparse a market but we did it and were financially very healthy (being a co-op all the profits were return to the customers (owners). A couple of years ago for example we gave everyone free electricity in December.

I'm a complete free market kind of guy when it makes sense (which is usually does). However, electric distribution is so capital intensive they should be run as either public owned monopolies or owner owned monopolies - with strong regulation and public oversight.

What you have here in Texas is just a joke. There is no "competition". You have just taken the distribution system and let multiple companies set themselves up to collect the checks from what is distributed anyway - that is a simplification but it is basically true. That is not efficient.

That and the fact you won't allow new coal plants (which are very clean now days) or nuke plants and everyone is paying 12-15 cents a kwh when it should be 3 cents. AND with so much generation down here produced from natural gas it is going to get much more expensive very quickly.

[tstone]

Apparently NPC cracked under pressure. This story made the news on TV and the newspaper in both DFW and here. I'm on Channel 2's list-serve for this story and got the following email today:

BREAKING GOOD NEWS!!

I just received this email message from David Barrett, the Chief Financial Officer of National Power Company:

"National Power Company has decided to rescind the scheduled rate increase set for late June 2008. All Fixed rate pricing and terms shall remain as originally agreed. National Power Company apologizes for any confusion caused by the rescinded letter. All customers to whom the rate increase letter was sent to will recieve additional confirmation via mail."

National Power Company met with the PUC today. A PUC spokesperson told me Barrett told them he would be making this announcement and the PUC says the news is “encouraging.”

Amy Davis
KPRC Local 2 Investigates

But since a flood of complaints came in, the PUC took their listing off PowerToChoose. That + angry customers leaving in droves probably hurts worse than dealing with some debt for a year. I guess we'll see how long they stay around.

An article here:
National Power to forego increase, keep rate at 11 cents per kilowatt hour | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Business News

[Topaz]

I guess this will teach me to open all my mail. I have a bad habit of tossing stuff that looks like junk mail and I would have missed this notice.