Do Not Use YEP Energy Power Company in Texas

[Guest trouble t]

Fellow military members: just writing to warn everyone not to use a power company in Texas called YEP Energy. Their rates are low but their customer service is horrific and they are not military-friendly.

When I called to cancel my service during my PCS from Texas months ago, they made no mention of the $175 cancellation fee they planned to charge me. When I received my final bill and saw the charge, I sent them a copy of my orders and asked that they reconsider. I received an amended bill, paid it, and thought that was the end of the matter...until a collection agency called me last week!

I paid the bill again, fearing my online payment hadn't gone through. Multiple phone calls and a couple wasted hours later, I'm still waiting on YEP to refund my duplicate payment and for them to close the issue with the collection agency. I think I've gotten it all resolved but I just wanted to warn everyone to avoid this company if at all possible.

[Fud]

You should not have paid a penny of the late fee or additional money to the collection agency (or whomever you paid "again"). Look up the column "ask a lawyer" on airforcetimes.com and look at the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act amendments. If you were on orders, the company can be fined. Also, I would report them to the better business bureau as well. I don't know if you will be able to get your money back, but never pay collection agencies. Deal with the company directly. The collection agency personnel are trained on how to use scare tactics to get you to pay them. I have even had the "we'll wreck your credit" one used on me, but I told them to piss off. Thanks for the heads up on this one.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Fud

[Guest Hueypilot812]

2 on the collection agency issue. If you're contacted by one and you think you don't owe anything, ask for the details on the alleged account information, then hang up. Don't pay them anything until you do your research. 9 times out of 10, they are simply out to scare you into paying something.

Case in point, a few years ago I got a call from a collection agency saying I owed a couple hundred bucks for an AT&T bill dating back to 2002. It didn't sound right. So I asked them for the amount I owed, the account number they had and any other particulars (including what division of AT&T this was coming from). I checked my credit too, and didn't notice anything stating that AT&T had written off anything.

I called AT&T, and the number I had been given didn't match any of their numbers. They ran my SSN and transfered me to each of their business units that I had accounts with over the years, and no one knew where this debt came from. I did more research and discovered that I had GTE and Sprint as landline carriers in 2002 (I lived in Alabama). The only AT&T-related company I could come up with was Cingular, with whom I had my cell phone with. In 2006, Cingular had been bought out by AT&T. I called AT&T back and they stated that my old Cingular account number would have probably been changed, but they didn't indicate I had any late balances.

After making more calls, I found out that when companies the size of Cingular and AT&T merge, they often have un-accounted for balances. Many of these are just accounting errors since most large corporations have two or more systems that keep track of the various charges. Had the company not merged, they would have annually gone through each system and audited them to make them match. Unfortunately, when Cingular was absorbed into AT&T, rather than going through the expense of auditing the erroneous accounts, they simply sold off the "overdue" accounts to any companies that wanted to buy the debt, for pennies on the dollar. I supposedly owed $200, and this company likely paid a few dozen bucks for the debt, and the permission to "recover" what they could. Some of the debts were actual debts, others were mis-matched balance sheets. The theory is these collection companies figure they can scare enough people to actually make a profit, and I'll tell you that they were very rude, deliberate and pushy, even when I was trying to work with them.

I called them back and stated I had talked to AT&T, and that I had been a customer of both Cingular and AT&T for many years and they had NO record of me ever being late...furthermore, if I was still an AT&T customer, you'd think they would have records of that, but they didn't. I got a lot of angry language about them ruining my credit if I didn't pay, but I simply ended the conversation. That was three years ago and I haven't heard anything from them again and nothing ever appeared on my credit record. Apparently with these transactions they can't really do anything to you anyways...there are two ways companies go about collecting money...this way and the old-fashioned way of a corporation handing a case off to a collection agency in the event of a real-time delinquency. In my case, they couldn't press it because they knew that legally they'd lose, so better to cut their $20-30 loss and focus on the next person to scare.

Bottom line, never let a collection agency scare you into doing anything. You have rights...one of those rights is they must disclose the information they have about the account. The other right you have is they have to disclose this to you in writing and you have a certain time frame after you receive it to respond. They initially make it sound like you must pay now or your financial life is over, but that's not true. I'm 100% positive I never owed Cingular or AT&T any money...after all, they could have just contacted me directly and I never had any late notices, nor did they ever have any record of me being late or overdue. If you know that's the case, exercise your rights, find the information, then tell them to pound sand.

[magnetfreezer]

3 on collection agencies. The FDCPA (discussed here) lays out many of the requirements for collection agencies. There are a number of lawyers/other people who make a rather decent living suing collection agencies for statutory damages for FDCPA violations. In addition to what Hueypilot said, never send the agency any paperwork with your signature - unscrupulous ones have been known to cut-and-paste onto phony legal documents agreeing to exorbitant repayments, for example. Finally, only ask them information when contacted by phone; many of the 'debts' are just a line in a spreadsheet with your name and an amount. Any action you take to try to negotiate with them/personal info you provide removes the necessity for them to prove the debt in court since you are admitting that it's valid.

[Guest trouble t]

Thanks for the info fellas. I have a refund check on the way from YEP Energy, but I probably said too much in my dealings with the collection agency.

[AEWingsMN]

1. Add TXU to the DO NOT USE list for Texas energy. Rates much higher than anyone else, even if they claim they are the lowest because they are fixed. Turns out they were fixed, fixed above my new companies top end of the range. I'd never lived in a state where there were competing energy companies, so I had no clue and just signed up for the one I was told about because there'd always only been one option where I was from. Me and a few people randomly had bills get as high as 400-500 last year (almost double what I got for this year December) which had obvious flaws in it, and they wouldn't work with us. I've since had bills as low as $79 with the new company. Obviously that wasn't the same month, but I don't think it would have even been possible to have a bill that low with TXU. I strongly recommend Energy Plus, low rates, much lower than TXU (yeah flexible /watt charge, but still lower) and you get frequent flyer miles with American for every bill you pay.

2. As for credit companies, beware if you are renting an apartment that they like to throw stuff at you after you move out. Last two apartments I rented did something. One told me they wanted to charge me $1000 on top of my security deposit. I said I would need an itemized list before I would pay, and their response was that it would have to come from corporate. I emailed corporate, and they told me they would work on it. 2 weeks later, no further reply, so I take initiative and email back and get the response "I've been out of the office, sorry". So I give it two more weeks, no response. Email them again and get told "I've been to busy and forgot". So I give up and tell myself "well, it must be gone then, she said she'd take care of it", and wait to see if I ever hear from them again, and I don't until I run a credit check. I filed a credit complaint stating exactly the above, and contacted the same lady saying it wasn't my fault they didn't do their job and I'm willing to pay once I know what I'm paying for so it needs to be removed from my credit report (with all previous emails attached). Immediate reply comes back saying "it has been erased, you owe us nothing anymore, we apologize".

2nd apartment was worse. I went in on the day I moved out and gave them a check and asked for exactly how much to make it out for, then I wrote it for that amount. They insisted they won't look over the apartment until after the move out date, I said fine, do what you want. I tried giving them a forwarding mailing address, and they said I needed to do that with the post office, so I did. 6 months later, I ran a credit report and found they wanted like 150-200 bucks for damages, but had never told me this. Turns out they had been mailing the address they had for me, which was to the building they were mailing it from, that obviously I'd moved out from... some people are retarded. They refused to call me when the mail came back undelivered, saying it wasn't their policy. If they would have just accepted the forwarding address or inspected first it would have all been fine. I ended up cutting a deal with the collections agency to remove it from my history when I paid the amount plus a small processing fee.

Edited January 4, 2011 by AEWingsMN

[Fud]

2 on TXU being a bad company and the apartment gig. I sublet apartments when I was in college, and the people I rented from tried to pin their previous damages on me. I almost always have a video camera on me with the time and date. I took footage before I ever moved in, showed it to the guy when accused of damaging his apartment, and he relented immediately.

Moral of the story. Some people are shitheads and will do whatever they can to get a buck from someone else. TXU not excluded. Lastly, always check your cell phone and other bills for irregularities. Another "scam" was put on us when we used fandango one time. A pop up window came up on the screen where you enter your credit card number. She clicked to close it and proceeded with her transaction. We saw the movie and thought nothing of it. We started rigorously going through our bills a few months later and found a $10 transaction being withdrawn from a company with a weird name. We did a google search, finally found a phone number, and I demanded my money back. They gave us our money back and apologized for the "mistake". Free credit report did the same thing.

[Guest]

Be advised, these debt collection fuckheads can make your life miserableso be careful.

[Guest Hueypilot812]

Be advised, these debt collection heads can make your life miserableso be careful.

Those are the same type of companies that came after me saying I owed AT&T money. I guess because my amount was fairly trivial they didn't pursue it any more after I threw out the bullshit flag. That and AT&T never had any record that I had owed them money.

[Herk Driver]

Those are the same type of companies that came after me saying I owed AT&T money. I guess because my amount was fairly trivial they didn't pursue it any more after I threw out the bullshit flag. That and AT&T never had any record that I had owed them money.

I had a similar situation over a cell phone. It was through Alltel and was a number from Fayetteville, NC. I called and talked with them. I was careful about what I told them about myself. Ultimately, I got the last 4 of the SSAN of the person they were after. Once I told them it wasn't me they were off to the next guy with the same name on their address list. That was more than 4 years ago. Hell, maybe they've filed suit, I don't know. I've moved since then, but they seemed content to continue profiling their address list for military that had ever lived in/near Fayetteville, NC. That alone should give them plenty of time to continue looking for this guy.

[Guest]

Those are the same type of companies that came after me saying I owed AT&T money. I guess because my amount was fairly trivial they didn't pursue it any more after I threw out the bullshit flag. That and AT&T never had any record that I had owed them money.

In Minnesota they can file in court and next thing you know you have a warrant. Even if they made a mistake.

[contraildash]

Also, I would report them to the better business bureau as well.

The BBB is a sham. Saw a report on how they were black mailing companies nation wide to become a paying member of their services or get reported on their bad list. Pretty interesting actually.

[willis]

Contact ERCOT (Energy Regulatory Commission of Texas) and file a complaint. It'll get addressed.

It would also be a good idea to give ERCOT a call to find out your rights in this situation. I think the power companies cannot charge you a cancellation fee if you are moving to an area they don't provide service...

Good luck.