A Texas woman has filed a lawsuit this week $ 1 billion in damages against Griddy, a Texas retailer who claims that during the widespread interruptions which swept through the state last week.
Houston resident Lisa Khoury filed the lawsuit on behalf of the countless Griddy customers who may be facing excessive bills following the winter storm that knocked out power for numerous residents across the state. Per Khoury’s suit, her monthly electric bills have ranged between $ 200 and $ 250 this month. For the period bbetween 1 February and 19 February, claims she’s Griddy charged her $ 9,546.
Griddy, for those who are unaware, is a service that allows Texas residents to pay what the company claims’wholesale pricesFor electricity, rather than the fixed price that other suppliers can charge. Apart from these rates, Griddy also charges a flat rate of about $ 10 per month for membership.
But these wholesale figures began to rise during the state disruption that struck millions of the Texans, according to the suit. While wholesale prices typically cost $ 50 per megawatt-hour, Reuters has point out the state commission for public utilities increased the limit to $ 9,000 per megawatt hour.
“A class action would be the most effective and efficient way for Griddy clients to come together to fight these robbery prices,” said Derek Potts, an attorney representing Khoury in the case. “At the moment we do not know how many people may be affected, but there are probably thousands of customers who have received these disgraceful bills.”
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One tab on the business FAQ page addresses some of the claims in the suit:
The reason wholesale prices were so high was on Monday, February 15th. The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) called its “complete authority over ERCOT” to determine that ERCOT set the price at $ 9 / kWh until the network could manage the disruption situation plagued by the icy winter storm.
Another page on Griddy’s website that the company intends to fight “for, and in addition [its] customers for fairness and accountability, ”and will abandon the“ political appointments ”of the state as to why price increases are“ allowed ”during undoubted one of the worst power outages in the country’s history.
In defense of Griddy here, the lawsuit alleges that the company emailed its customers on February 14– just before some of these sky-high prices were charged – and warned that they would have to find a fixed tariff provider in the coming days. But Khoury says it was too little, too late. By the time she received the email, the complaint reads, she and numerous other Griddy customers were unable to make the switch, as most vendors did not take on new customers during the storm.
By the time Khoury finally managed to switch from supplier on 19 February, she has already raised thousands of dollars in costs. Other Griddy customers have accounts of higher than $ 5,000, despite suffering through days without power or heat.