Griddy sued for $ 1 billion over alleged price hike

A Texas woman filed a class action lawsuit this week at the rate of $ 1 billion in damages against Griddy, a Texas electricity retailer who, according to the lawsuit, engaged in an illegal price scam during the generalized breakdowns that swept through the state last week.

Houston resident Lisa Khoury has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the countless Griddy clients who may be facing disproportionate bills following the winter storm that stunned power for countless residents across the state. By Khoury’s costume, his monthly electricity bills until that month ranged between $ 200 and $ 250. For period between February 1 and February 19, she alleges that 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 “wholesale ratesFor electricity, rather than the fixed price that other suppliers might charge. In addition to these rates, Griddy is also asking for a flat rate of around $ 10. per month for membership.

But those wholesale rates started to climb during the statewide outage that affected millions Texans, depending on the costume. While wholesale rates typically charge $ 50 per megawatt hour, Reuters points out the State Utilities Commission raised the cap to $ 9,000 per megawatt hour.

“A class action suit will be the most effective and efficient way for Griddy’s clients to come together and fight these predatory prices,” said Derek Potts, an attorney representing Khoury in the case. “At this point, 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 tab on the company FAQ page responds to some of the scam allegations made in the lawsuit:

The reason wholesale prices were so high was on Monday February 15, the Texas Utilities Commission (PUCT) cited its “total authority over ERCOT” to order ERCOT to set prices at $ 9 / kWh until ” so that the network can handle the outage situation after ravaged by the freezing winter storm.

Another page on the Griddy site reports that the company intends to fight “for and alongside [its] customers for fairness and accountability ”, and will push the state’s“ elected politicians ”to confess why the price increases were“ allowed ”during what is undoubtedly 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 February 14.– right before some of those sky-high prices are billed – warning that they should try to find a fixed-rate provider in the coming days. But Khoury says it was too little, too late. By the time she received this email, the lawsuit says, she and countless other Griddy customers were unable to make the switch, as most vendors were not accepting new customers during the storm. .

By the time Khoury finally managed to switch supplier on February 19, she had already racked up thousands of dollars in fees. Other Griddy customers have reported invoices for over $ 5,000, despite suffering for days without electricity or heat.