A Texas woman filed a class action lawsuit this week $ 1 billion in compensation against Griddy, a Texas retailer who claims the lawsuit is involved in illegal price tagging during widespread interruptions which crossed the state last week.
Houston resident Lisa Khoury has filed a lawsuit on behalf of countless Griddy clients she may face excessive bills following the winter storm that beaten power for countless residents across the state. On Khoury’s suit, her monthly electricity bills up to this month ranged from $ 200 to $ 250. For the period bbetween February 1 and February 19, she claims Griddy accused her $ 9,546.
Griddy, for those who don’t know, is a service that allows Texas residents to pay what the company claims to be. “wholesale rates“For electricity, rather than the fixed price that other suppliers might charge. In addition to these rates, Griddy also charges a flat rate of approximately $ 10 monthly for subscription.
But these wholesale tariffs began to rise during the statewide disruption that affected MILLION of Texans, according to the process. While wholesale rates typically charged $ 50 per megawatt hour, Reuters reported highlights The state’s public utility commission raised the ceiling to $ 9,000 per megawatt hour.
“Collective action will be the most effective and efficient way for Griddy’s clients to come together and fight these prey prices,” said Derek Potts, a lawyer representing Khoury in the case. “Right now we don’t know how many people could be affected, but there are probably thousands of customers who have received these outrageous bills.”
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A company tab Frequently asked questions page addresses some of the claims made in the process:
The reason the wholesale prices were so high was on Monday, February 15, the Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUCT) cited its “full authority over ERCOT” to establish that ERCOT set the price at $ 9 / kWh. until the network could handle the outage after being devastated by the frozen winter storm.
Another page on Griddy’s sites that the company intends to fight “for and with [its] customers for fairness and responsibility ”and will push the“ so-called politicians ”of the state to understand why price increases have been“ allowed to happen ”in the undoubted time one of the worst power outages in the country’s history.
In Griddy’s defense here, the lawsuit claims the company emailed its customers on Feb. 14– even before some of these high prices are charged – warning that they should try to find a flat-rate supplier in the coming days. But Khoury says it was too little, too late. When she received this email, the suit says that she and countless Griddy customers failed to make the change because most suppliers did not take new customers during the storm.
By the time Khoury finally managed to switch suppliers on February 19th, she had already amassed thousands of dollars in taxes. Other Griddy customers have reported invoices over $ 5,000, despite suffering days without energy or heat.