State utility regulators in Ohio approved a deal with a natural gas marketing company this week, settling a long dispute over alleged bad behavior by its sales force.
Similar complaints led to a settlement with New York’s attorney general in 2008, with the Illinois AG last year and with that state's commerce commission this spring.
Now the company, called Just Energy, wants to sell natural gas in Georgia.
It has a license application pending at the state Public Service Commission for a company called Commerce Energy, which Just Energy bought a few years ago.
Commerce left the Georgia gas market in 2006, according to the PSC.
Just Energy did not comment on its troubles in other states. But it has defended its record, saying the number of complaints is small compared to its total customer base, according to public records.
The PSC said it had no time line for ruling on the Just Energy license, and that PSC staff are seeking additional data. The commission and state law require marketers to provide proof of financial and technical capabilities to serve customers in Georgia, spokesman Bill Edge said.
The investigations in other states focused on complaints of aggressive tactics used by a sales force paid on commission to switch customers to Just Energy, sometimes in areas that were just beginning to allow retail sales of natural gas.
Ohio regulators, and the AG offices in New York and Illinois, said customers were being harrassed and misled about savings and, in some cases, what company they were actually dealing with.
In a report, staff of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio said they had found “a disturbing trend of unconscionable practices by Just Energy door-to-door solicitors,” including “a consistent pattern of intimidating, aggressive sales tactics toward consumers, including senior citizens and consumers that speak little English.”
In Illinois, the AG’s complaint listed 457 complaints to that office, another 2,334 to an agency called the Citizens Utility Board and 254 complaints to the Better Business Bureau. The BBB gives Just Energy an F rating, according to its website.
Just Energy admitted no wrongdoing in any of the three settlement agreements.
In New York, it agreed to cancel 11,000 sales agreements without charging termination fees and to pay $100,000. In Illinois, the settlement required the company to pay $1 million into a fund used to compensate customers who qualified.
The latest of the three settlements, approved by Ohio’s version of the PSC Monday, required the company to pay $111,000 in penalties and hold another $200,000 in reserve, to be forfeited if complaints exceed certain spelled-out limits.
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