Energy re-sellers to give customers a rebate

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) IF you bought your energy from re-sellers as opposed to directly from a utility, check your mailbox. You'll soon get a rebate check from NYS.

The New York State Public Service Commission recently adopted the terms and conditions of a settlement agreement with nine energy service companies affiliated with NRG, a major energy supplier, that requires the companies to collectively pay $50 million in billing adjustments to 278,000 current and former residential and small commercial customers.

One of those customers is Domenic Cortese. "(The check) came in the mail (Thursday) from Direct Energy, who is an energy reseller that I at one time was aligned with through my NYSEG electric bill," says Cortese. He says the check caught him by surprise. "When I noticed the Direct Energy on the bill, I quickly was alarmed in that I hadn't paid attention for probably several months or years on the fact that it was attached to my, energy consumption, and then it turns out the rate was higher than the regular NYSEG rate, so I discontinued the relationship and went to the direct purchase through NYSEG, then come to find out that it was higher, indeed." Cortese says his rebate check was for $626.46, which he says is a startling amount of money to have overpaid for a while.

Cortese says scrutinize an energy reseller, and be careful you don't do what he did. "Which is, thinking that you're saving by going for a reseller and then having it actually cost you more. Check your utility bill to see if you have an energy reseller listed on there, and check their rate out, and compare it to the utilities of the utilities rate. This just ties right into the never-ending saga of the fact that we're grossly overpaying for our utilities here in New York state, and yeah, we're going to get a couple $100 back as part of that overpayment in the form of relief that the governor announced in her budget, and this is another testimony of that overpaying, so be very careful on this one, because this is something you can control," warns Cortese.

The settlement also requires the companies to offer a product guaranteed to save those impacted mass market customers 15 percent compared to the utility rate for a one-year term and provide billing adjustments to certain low-income customers.