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Like some others, I signed up for the 24 month contract with Constellation. Like many others, i get busy with life and end up not resigning for a contract immediately (or in my case over 12 mos) and get put on their variable plan. I can tell you this - it has cost me over $1,000 compared to what I would've paid with JCP&L. In 12 months, Constellation's rate was only lower for 1 month. In fact, there was 1 month their rate was DOUBLE what I would've paid with JCP&L. Another month the rate was 50% more. I called them to complain, and as others have said, they simply state that the energy is purchased at market rates and they have no control over them. It is partially my fault for procrastinating so long but that is how more and more companies treat consumers. Comcast is no exception and they count on the laziness of people to jack up prices after their introductory offers are done to make money. If that is how a company chooses to have their business model then I have NO interest in doing business with them. I would rather do business with a company that charges a fair price, makes a fair profit and doesn't play with all of these offers/contracts/pricing plans that makes the consumer spend hrs trying to figure it all out.
With any of these discount suppliers, consumers beware!!!! If you want to get on the merry-go-round of constantly switching providers and tracking when your contract expires just to save 10%, then more power to you. Don't miss the end of the contracts!!!!
Oh yeah, forgot to add that when I did tell Constellation I wanted to cancel my contract (on the phone) they told me that they will do that immediately but because of JCP&L I will still get billed by constellation for another 1-2 months. Then I received an email essentially saying that "They heard I wanted to cancel but they aren't sure if it was requested by me or JCP&L. Because of this I should either contact them to let them know I didn't want to cancel or if they don't hear from me within 7 days they will assume I did want to cancel (thus buying them an additional 7 days). Bottom line, if you are trying to cancel at the end of your contract make sure that you can cancel a month or 2 before your contract is up without an early termination penalty. Otherwise they may get you on variable pricing for a month or two and who knows what you will get charged.
Last edited by Muddzy; 01-07-2015 at 02:30 PM..
Reason: clarify contract cancellation
These companies are never a good deal. The promise to save 10% is only on the supply of the electric and gas for the initial teaser period. They do not save you any money on the monthly service charges or the delivery charges. Once the teaser period is over they can charge well over what you will get from the company that delivers the energy (PSEG, JCPL for example).
I dropped Constellation long ago...but guess that is what this thread started with. I've been through a couple of others since and I track each month to see what I save on Energy..not on transprotation, that's a regulatory issue, no market competition.
I had a 10 cent (really 9.99 cents guarantee) and in the past few months JCP&L was lower, by a fraction of a cent, but even a tenth of a cent on a 1000 KWH is a buck.
I was in the process of switching back to JCP&L and got a phone call, offering a $50 check to stay with, no cancellation fees, and an ongoing guaranteed rate. Last month they saved me about $4 on 1700 KWH or thereabout (I heat with geothermal electric). The $50 check was promptly railed to me and cashed. I'll take a few months of costing a slight amount over JCP&L against the $50 bonus, before cancelling..sure it will happen sometime, unless we finally get the anti-coal party out of the White House, good start, the Senate has changed.
To be fair I should say that in the beginning I did save some money signing up with Constellation over JCP&L. I didn't add it all up exactly but looking at it briefly I probably saved somewhere around $185 over 2 years. Add on top of that the $150 target card I received and I could've made it work in my favor (or probably even out) if I was more on top of things. But to charge me a variable rate of 21.6cents per KWH one month (when JCP&L was 10.49cents) and then 15.9 cents/kwh and 16.51 cents/kwh the following 2 months (when JCP&L was 10.49 cents and 10.31 cents respectively) is just crazy IMO and that is how they make up for the teaser rates and gift cards. They could've given me 5 target gift cards and I still would've "lost" money on the deal if compared to staying with JCP&L. I guess it can work for those that are willing to stay on top of it and put in the hours to work the phones/emails/calendar.
Last edited by Muddzy; 01-07-2015 at 10:29 PM..
Reason: clarify
I am among the disappointed in the 3rd party energy tactics. But, easy to check what the rate is by simply reading the electric bill, and if you have lived out any contract time it takes only one phone call to JCP&L to switch back to them. Of course the switch can't take place until the next meter reading leaving us open to unethical pricing....e.g., no cancellation fee but they charge 35 cents a KWH for the last bill they get to render.
My current folks could be lying in the bushes waiting the screw me and get the bait back, but I do have a guaranteed rated, fixed. So I think I am safe for no more than a limited, under $100 loss, if I keep my eye on "them"... then too I may just decided to switch back to JCP&L in six months if I'm getting anywhere near paying back the $50 stay with them bonus.
I'm a retired electrical engineer so I have all the time and tools needed to run this "business" case.... but being retired i'm an old guy and the grey matter doesn't work so well any more, so I seem to get almost nothing done with all the "Free Time" I now have.. must be spending too much time here.. blogging about the web.. watching TV, Youtube..
As above, I took the $50 check to continue my no-withdrawal-penalty contract for just under 10 cents per KWH.. and JCP&L has consistently been lower... about $6 a month less than I was paying for energy. I took action a few weeks ago to return to JCP&L as my supplier. That has happened and so far no mention of any penalty from the 3rd party (RGN or RNG.. something like that is the name, can look if anyone needs to know) supplier. Given the supplier gave me an up-front kicker guess I've not lost any money yet but I was headed in that direction.
So for now it is the Good Old Days for electricity power, all from JCP&L.
you get charged both by them as well as your energy provider. They have an awesome rate **facetious thumbs up, but there are extra charges appearing on the delivery portion of the bill which is charged only from the utility as delivery that when added with the fixed rate of the supply comes out to anywhere from 9-14¢ a kilowatt hour. The plus side of this information is that others don't and if their rates are slightly higher than CE then they probably don't have those extra charges because that's where the low rate comes from
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to be fair
