Texas AG Ken Paxton Suing Electric Company Griddy Over Rates
I have been keeping an eye on this wholesale electrical company Griddy based out of Houston. The Attorney General has now gotten involved and things are getting serious.
During the brutal arctic blast two weeks ago, I reported to you about this electrical company called Griddy. They told their customers to cancel their service because their bills would increase significantly. Here's the problem, if they cancel, they can't switch to a new provider til the following week. So it was either freeze in single digit temperatures or pay out the butt.
One customer who normally gets charged around 12 cents a kilowatt was now being charged 900 dollars a kilowatt. Griddy is a wholesale electrical company, you pay what the electric company pays they say. So if the demand is high, your bill is higher. Two weeks ago, the demand was VERY HIGH for electricity. Many customers had to make the difficult decision for what to do with Griddy.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is now coming to help out Griddy customers. He filed a lawsuit against the company this morning for violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. He claims they used "false, misleading, and deceptive advertising and marketing practices."
"Griddy misled Texans and signed them up for services which, in a time of crisis, resulted in individual Texans each losing thousands of dollars," Paxton said. "As Texans struggled to survive this winter storm, Griddy made the suffering even worse as it debited outrageous amounts each day. As the first lawsuit filed by my office to confront the outrageous failure of power companies, I will hold Griddy accountable for their escalation of this winter storm disaster. My office will not allow Texans to be deceived or exploited by unlawful behavior and deceptive business practices."
Griddy is blaming the Public Utility Commission. The company states that it did not profit from raised prices. I'm still trying to figure out how Griddy makes any money with their service. Something seems very sketchy with all of this.