Amigo Energy’s Competitive Electric Rates, Where Did They Go?
Amigo previously had provided competitive electric rates in the Texas area while targeting the hispanic community as their primary source for new customers. Over the last year Amigo has advertised energy rates that have compared competitively with some of the most competitive retail electric providers in Texas. Amigo Electric Company is headquartered in the Houston Texas area but provides electricity to customers throughout the deregulated cities in Texas.
Research On Their Site
I went out to their site today January 8 2007 and they are offering a 12 month rate at 12.9 in the Dallas area and 13.3 cents kWh in the Houston area. These rates are terrible. The only thing I can think as to why their rates have gone up so much is their success. They have their brand name out there and a lot of word of mouth so they may be signing up customers on brand name recognition only at this point.
Comparing Amigo With Other Electric Companies
A comparable electric rate to Amigo’s energy rate that is much more competitive would be to go through Startex Power if you are in or around the Dallas Texas area and to use Champion Energy if you are in or around the Houston area. As of January 8 2007 Startex Power offers a 12 month term rate of 11.4 cents a kWh with no monthly customer service charge in the Dallas area. Champion Energy offers an electric rate at 11.1 cents a kWh in the Houston area with a $4.95 monthly service charge.
28 users commented in " Amigo Electric Company "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI swear, I think Amigo is a CROCK. Nobody I know has heard of these people, and I’m currently paying over $220 a month EVERY month for an apartment that is less than 700 square feet and has NO TV, NO w/d, NO stereo and NO computer. UNREAL!!!
I was going to be late one month paying Amigo Energy due to my daughter being very ill.
I ask them give me 3 days more to pay my bill. They turn my service off when they knew my daughter on a breathing machine. I live in apt. my bill with them is 300.00 every month. Something is wrong with this company.
this company S**KS!!!!!!!!!!!! i asked for them to allow me to pay my bill late and thay said they were still going to turn it off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! these poeple don’t give a #*&#* at all!!!!!!!!!!!
This companies month to month rate price is based on when you signed up! I just got my May bill and it is much higher then their posted month-to-month rate and also much higher then TXU. I called and asked why and was told that I signed up for the month-to-month November plan. Currently they have the month-to-month May plan which is different then my plan! Basically these guys give you a reasonable rate for a couple of months and then increase the rate above what you would be paying your normal energy company. Don’t bother…
We have used Amigo for a little over a year simply because they gave us the lowest rate I have found at .10 per kwh and it was supposed to be a fixed rate, in march it went to .12 without notice and then in april to .14 per kwh and now may its up to .19 per kwh after trying to call them and getting no response. We are going to report them to the PUC because they are required by law to give notice of a rate increase. My sugestiion is to go somewhere else and avoid the problems with this company
After talking with customer service for a week now, if your on a month to month plan, then you have to call them each month to keep your low rate. They make sure not to tell you when you sign up, but it is on your bill in the top right side as a sales pitch of making $25 dollars and to get a fixed rate, so my advice is to choose carefully before signing that contract.
I just posted this complaint in the PUC online system!
“After 16 hours and 2 days of phone calls to Center Point, ERCOT, PUC and Green Mountain, and after being miss directed, miss led (in essence lied to), I have finally been told that by Green Mountain and Center Point that it is their policy NOT to switch services on a more timely basis by doing off cycle meter readings. This news, 10 days after I placed my order for a timely switch from my old REP (Amigo energy, who has raised their rates in 2 months by nearly 50%, and is expected to raise their rates again on the next cycle).
The PUC needs to change their rules to allow faster, more timely, meaning change PUC rules to force the REP and grid operators to do more timely switch overs for customers who request a new REP and an off cycle read so that consumers do not get trapped by exorbident rate changes by old providers while the Grid operator and REP drag their feet for 8 weeks making a switch over. The anti slamming rules in combination the refusal to do off cycle meter reads is doing more harm to consumers, by not allowing some form of validation by consumers to skip the anti slamming waiting period and by not forcing REPs and Grid operators to allow off cycle meter reads for customers who are switching REPs.
This problem is estimated to be costing me about $200 this month!”
I also signed up because they had the lowest rate listed when I compared online. I just got a $377 bill for May! It is $100 higher then my neigbor’s who have a smaller house and set their thermostat 5 degrees lower then ours! I have emailed Amigo but have heard nothing so far.
I’m in total shock! We signed up with Amigo and service started on 11/27/07, at what we thought was a 12 month fixed rate of 11.4 per kwh. No where on the monthly bill did it ever state any information about the contract. Nor were we notified that our contract was apparently for only six months and it was ending. We were not offered a chance to resign up for another fixed rate contract. I’m retired and am still in shock because of the bill I received today from Amigo. Instead of an .114 per kwh rate, it jumped to .2469 per kwh. This increase made our 6/2/08 through 7/1/08 bill come to $791.15 instead of the $364.69 it would have been at .114 per kwh. No grocery buying for us this month!
wow i came on here to look for a friend the rates and seen all these comments i switched from TXU to amigo in feb i live in a townhouse run my air 24/7 at 72 deg my kid is always turnin the closet light on and i find it on 2 hours later lol and i leave my porch light on all night and my electric bill is NEVER over 85 a month and my neighbor that has kids just her and husband and both military so never home and they go thru txu and there bill is never under 200 so i dont know i use the new lighbulbs in everything i have mabey thats why mine is soooo cheap wow this amazes me to read all this goodl uck to u all
I signed up with Amigo a year ago with a yearly contract. They automatically charged me an addtional $6.00 a month because I was a low usage customer. When I complained upon receipt of my first billing, they apologize and put me on a month to month contract. Everything seem to go okay until the last two months. My average billings for May has been $65.00 and June $85.00 when I was with Reliant for the past 20 years. I live in a 1050 sq.ft. house alone with themostat set at 80 during the day and 78 at nite. Well, alone comes May’s billing at $127.00 at .17cents and June’s billing at $167.00 at .2497 cents. Could not beleive it. Could not get through on there on telephone to discuss for an explanation. Currently switching back to Reliant but will get stuck with another outrageous bill before the switch is complete. Paying top dollar to sweat…Highway robbery.
Same thing here, I signed up for a one year contract and after it expired my rate went from .116 to .154 to .19 to .249 over a 100% increase in three months, the last month of which I thought I was with Reliant but they were dragging there feet picking up my service so I got to pay the last month at .249, Thank god it didn’t go on for another month the rate might have been .30 the only notice I recieved was a larger bill every month.
I too have been stung by these crooks, and I fully plan on taking legal action if they do not drop my rate for my most recent statment.
Here are my rates for the last few months:
April 3019kwh @ 0.1229
May 2438kwh @ 0.1549
June 4268kwh @ 0.1899
July 4086kwh @ 0.2389
My bill raised my eyebrows abit last month, but I had three parties @ home, and the doors were open alot. This month has been hot, so that’s why it’s so high now, but look at the per kwh charge! It has almost doubled in 4 months! There is no excuse for this, it is simple robbery. This is EXACTLY what happened in Califionia when energy was deregulated. Just search for “Enron Tapes” in google and listen to how these charlatans work.
I’m afraid this is now the second time this happened to me. I switched to Amigo, and have been very happy with them for more than 1.5 years, after getting very similar treatment from Reliant some time back.
No notices for me either, I’m not going to bend over this time.
Fight back people, I’m sure their customer support folks are not even answering the phones right now, but we’ll see what happens when I call tomorrow. I have now switched providers as well.
Thanks!
-Kevin
I intend to fight this outrageous miscarriage of consumer confidence. My electric bill for my 2800 sq foot “energy efficient” home was $762 in June 2008 and $968 for July 2008. I too was suckered in by Amigo’s claim that the rate was fixed (not reading the bill’s fine print that you had to contact them monthly to request the rate to remain the same.) My first action will be to find another energy provider that gives truth in advertising. My second action will be to call Amigo and tell them that friends don’t treat friends the way they have treated their customers. The PUC will hear from me and so will the Attorney General’s office. Next I will be consulting the Fair Trade Commission to see if they have violated federal laws. I feel for those who are going without groceries. I don’t expect to have any reply from Amigo, but I certainly hope others will protest to the PUC and Attorney General.
Is anyone else having trouble getting through to their customer service? I’m a former NPC customer who got switched and luckily I was able to change to a new company, however I still have not received a bill from Amigo for the month I was with them… All this crap is starting to sound VERY shady. First NPC gives them their business and then the rates skyrocket, and now you can’t reach anybody on the phone…
I was unlucky enough to have National Power go out of business and I was switched to Amigo. I have not received calls, bills or notifications from them, yet yesterday, with a temperature of almost 100 degrees out, my power was disconnected. Of course, their customer service apologized for my inconvenience and insisted that many phone calls were made to my home phone and messages left, and mail notices were sent (all of which never made it to my phone or home). Now that the confusion is cleared up, it may take another 24 to 48 hours to have my power turned back on by CenterPoint.
I think it is entirely wrong and should be considered criminal, to turn off power for anyone without a knock on the door. My wife was home when the power was turned off, and being handicapped and no power for telephone, was stuck in the house in the heat for 5 hours before someone came by the house at 4:30 in the afternoon to realize that she was stuck in the sweltering heat.
I’m more than a little upset, and I can see from the previous messages that were submitted by other unhappy customers, that Amigo will likely go out of business soon as well. I’m going to make a change to another company today.
@Keith: Just wait for your bill from them. They are trying to charge us former NPC customers 24.19cents/kwh. According to them I owe $402 for a 900 sq ft 2 bedroom apt kept at 80 degrees day in and out. They are going to force people to choose between groceries and electricity…. Thank God I switched to another company as soon as I found out NPC was dead!
BTW, if anyone is wondering why rates skyrocketed in July - it’s basic economics. Amigo had a set supply of power and then took on NPC’s customers, so then their demand skyrocketed. When demand goes up, and supply stays the same, prices go up (and then fatten the wallets of the Vega brothers). Such a simple principle that anyone here can understand, yet these morons apparently don’t know basic economics….
Hey, Josh. If Amigo didn’t contract enough supply to serve their existing customers then they should not have taken on additional customers. My wife owns her own business. Should she charge existing customers 60% more when she doubles her customer base? If she did that, she’d be out of business pretty quickly. For that reason she turns customers away if she can’t serve them for the same price.
@Doug C: You’re 100% correct. Unfortunately your wife has ethics and Amigo apparently doesn’t. They don’t care if they steal people’s money (which is essentially what they’re doing) as long as they make a buck. It’s all about fattening the wallets of the owners and screwing over the customers. I have no doubt in my mind Amigo knew what they were doing and knew the outcome :(.
I hear ‘ya on the proposed .114 rate a year ago June. No where stated was the ‘variable’ 800 sf apt.. 194 bucks and I turned it off for nearly 2 weeks while I was out of town. Right now I’m trying to cancel my service, and no one will take my call or reply to my e-mails!!! HELP!!
Here is what I posted on another site:
I am a former National Power Customer and was transfered to Amigo. I got a letter in the mail for the change over both by NPC and Amigo. Amigo said that my rate would stay the same at 16.5 cents per KWH. My last bill from NPC was till May 30th and was from May 6th - May 30th and was 113.00 for 713 KWH. The month of June went by and still no bill from Amigo. So I was like well maybe the billing cycle is from June 1 -July 1 or maybe a little later. I gave them about a week or two for the bill to get there. No bill still till this date. I contacted them by the number, which in the middle of July was not working, so used their website contact. I got an email comfirmation that it was sent in. I was asking where is the bill and what is going on. I did not want a $900 bill and wanted some resolution. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt that it was taking more time than usual because of the 8500 customers coming over. Still no bill. I called no success. Finally last night on 8-5 I called customer service and the number worked but was on hold and eventually hung up on. Tried four times last night between 5:00pm and 7:00pm. No success. So this morning I called at 8:00am and finally after one hang up and the second call got a live person. They said they sent me a bill and my total bill is now almost $800. Hmmm go figure my bills before this were never higher than $150. Well they guy on the phone was like we mailed them. We contacted you. We did this and that and they did none of the above ( I have proof). I have records of the calls to me and they called once for a sales pitch. Looked at my email and there were two sales pitches there and the two emails were not on the day they said they sent them.
Here is the fun part and where things do not add up. As mentioned for 24 days in May my usage was 713KWH. Amigo is trying to say that from June 1-June 8th I used over 1100 KWH and from June 8th to July 8th I used little over 2500 KWH. First off I have never used over 2000 KWH in my two bedroom apartment. Even last summer it never got that high. Second how is it in may, 24 days, I used 713 KWH and in 8 days in June I used well over that. Also if you did the math with that logic June to July which has been much hotter here in Dallas the KWH should be well over 4000KWH but was only 2500 KWH. This did not sound right. Well they gave me the 16.5 cent rate for the first bill of 8 days in June and then charged 24.19 cents for the June to July. Well after some research and some reading I noticed I was not the only one in this boat. So I called them back and asked for a manager. His basic thing was we notified you and you did not respond. I went through same song and dance with him. His final offer to me was if I signed up with a 3 year plan they would knock $75 off my last bill. I laughed and said no thanks and have now changed my service.
All this prompted me to call PUC. I enquired about how to file a complaint. They gave me Amigos executive line. I called that line and well lets say there are two options. Press 1 for customer service (which I will not go back through) and # to get to a directory. Well directory does no good. They do give you the option of pressing 0 for an operator in the directory but guess what it takes you back to the same two menus. I gave up and called PUC back. Explained this and PUC said that Amigo was required by law to give me the 16.5 cent rate for the first month (30days), which they did not. They also agree the numbers just do not add up on my usage and agree that things seemed very fishy. They took my complaint right over the phone and it is now in their hands.
My advice to anyone with Amigo change your electric carrier. They do shady things and they do things that are not ethical. They try and bully people into contracts and if you do not they screw you royally. I am just glad mine is in the hands of PUC and my lawyer now. I really do see Amigo going under just like NPC did if they do not straighten up. What they are doing is against the law and do not let them fool you. Just my 2 cents.
To answer some questions that I got from PUC:
Keith, no they can not turn off your power without physical notice to you. It is illegal. I would contact PUC on this.
Josh, Yes I tried calling three weeks ago and their number was really screwy. Also sent in a contact off their site and noone called. When I finally got them they said they did. Read above on the attempts and what they said they did. PUC told me they are investigating this and I think we might see something in the news on this soon.
Personally I think they are trying to scam people and this is going to be a huge deal. IMO I think everyone having issues with them should contact PUC. It just amazes me that I am not the only one that has not gotten a bill yet but they say it is my postal service but their notice of change came just fine. All I have got to say it they screwed with the wrong Texan and I will not sit by on this. Simple.
@Jack: It’s interesting (and worrysome at the same time) that they told you they mailed the bill already. I spoke with them a few days ago and they told me my bill would take 30-60 days after my final day of service to get to me. With the way these people are, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m already past due even though I haven’t received a bill.
BTW for anyone who wants it, from NPC’s TOS (which amigo has stated they are honoring):
Variable
rate offers may change, but not more than once per billing cycle and not more than 10% from the rate stated on your
Electricity Facts Label without NPC providing you a revised Electricity Facts Label.
The price increases were against their own TOS, and thus a breach of contract.
Unfortunately, I signed up with Amigo last month. Anyone know how I get rid of them?
Jody: Did you signed as yearly contract? 3 years? Some providers have a “penalty” to cancel subscription. Also, check to see if they have a 30-day trial type of a deal? Which I doubt it! If they will penalies you! then it is better to paid that penalty then to sign with them! Just switch as soon as possible cause most providers take at least 30 days to switch or the “next billed cycle”. Good Luck!
p.s. I got screwed too! Was a NPC customer!
I’ve been reading all these posts regarding Amigo. I too was an NPC customer. Loved their rates–my bills were always low, and I had very few complaints with them.
I switched immediately when I found out they were going out of business. Too bad it took the new provider 22 days to get switched over. My bill from Amigo was $265 for 1064 kwh. That’s 24.69 cents. Well I called to tell them I’m not paying that amount–I didn’t ask to be switched to them, so I’m refusing to pay that amount. Well the person on the line put me on hold and came back with this: Since the dates I was billed for were in May/June, they gave me the may/june variable rate. That’s 19.9 cents. So that dropped by bill $50. If your usage was in June, call and request the same.
Since Amigo is no longer my provider, I’m trying to find out if they can have my electricity turned off for non-payment. I can’t imagine that they could–I called Centerpoint and the lady there was not positive either. I tried calling the PUC, but its after business hours. I’ll try again tomorrow. I am just going to try everything posible NOT to pay this crazy amt!!! It may not seem that high considering some of your bills, but when I typically pay less than $90 for my 2300 sq/ft house, this is just highway robbery!
After this company started raising my so called flat rate, I called them and asked for them to reduce my rate to be closer to what was offered elsewhere. They were not interested, and in June of 2008, YEP became my new supplier. I awaited my final bill from Amigo. Thet sent me a final bill, almost twice what they had billed per kWh the prior month. I called them, assumung a simple mistake, the same day and told them that until I was rebilled at the same rate I had the month before, I would not pay them. Forgetting that they had requested my checking account number when I signed up, I was surprised when they charged my checking with that much higher rate. I called my Bank, filled fraud paapers with them, and now the money has been charged back to Amigo. In the meantime, I have submitted a formal complaint to the Texas PUC and have retained an attorney (my son) who will surely have expenses that we will expect Amigo to pay before I pay them anything.
So, If you use this company, please do not give them your account niumbers, as I will never do that again to anyone.
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