A coding mistake is blamed for an error in which natural gas marketer Direct Energy sent 17,000 letters last week to the wrong Summit County residents.
Instead of offering an aggregation deal to 3,400 residents in Summit County townships and the city of New Franklin who had not chosen their own gas provider, Direct Energy letters were mistakenly sent to customers who were not part of the aggregation group.
In many cases, customers lived in Summit County, but in Akron, Norton, Barberton and other cities. Also, some current Direct Energy customers were sent the letter in error, said spokeswoman Bethany Ruhe.
Ruhe said Wednesday that “the volume of letters that went out exceeded the number that should have gone out.”
“The correct people did not get the letters. It went to the whole list of people who weren’t supposed to get the letters. What happened here was there was a code inverted,” she said. “That’s what caused this whole debacle.
“We’re so incredibly sorry. We’re working very hard to correct this. It will never happen again. A small human error caused this whole avalanche of activity that we’re quickly trying to rectify,” she said.
Direct Energy was not able to pinpoint the problem until late Tuesday afternoon and confirm it on Wednesday after being notified of a potential problem by a reporter earlier Tuesday.
The letters sent in error caused a large call volume to Direct Energy, and the marketer had to switch to a voicemail system instead of answering calls directly. There was also additional confusion when Direct Energy representatives called some customers back and told them they might still be included in the aggregation or could not confirm they wanted to opt out of the supply agreement until February.
Ruhe said as of Wednesday late afternoon, the voicemail option ended and live operators will be available to talk to customers during business hours.
The confusion by call center staff is because “personnel was scrambling to answer the unfortunate situation and we’re trying to correct it as soon as possible,” she said.
No action needed
Customers who received the letters in error do not need to do anything about their supplier. Retraction letters will be coming soon, Direct Energy said, and customers will not be included in the aggregation if they don’t contact the company.
“They don’t need to do anything and we’re awfully sorry to have bothered them,” Ruhe said.
Customers in the potential aggregation pool who have not selected their marketer will receive new letters and will have until Feb. 28 to mail in the opt-out form or call the toll-free number to opt out. The original deadline of Jan. 30 has been extended because of the mix-up, Ruhe said.
In November, the Summit County Council approved a two-year aggregation or group-buying deal with Direct Energy. The aggregation is for township residents — in Bath, Boston, Copley, Coventry, Northfield Center, Richfield, Springfield and Twinsburg — plus New Franklin, and for customers who aren’t currently with a supplier. Sagamore Hills Township customers are part of a different aggregation and New Franklin is included because it was a township when the aggregation was originally formed.
The rate is fixed at $5.39 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) with a 10-cent discount for seniors. The rate would begin in February and last until January 2014. In comparison, customers on the Standard Choice Offer (SCO), through the randomly selected provider assigned by Dominion East Ohio, are paying $4.08/mcf for the month of January. While many customers this year have opted for the SCO rate, because they have not chosen a separate marketer, their accounts get included in any aggregation groups, and customers must opt out in order to stay on their current rate. Many aggregation groups were formed after residents in communities approved ballot issues in the early 2000s to allow for the groups and require in many cases that people be included in the aggregation unless they opt out.
Customers do not need to contact the company’s opt-out number, which is 866-760-6040.
“If they sit tight, they will get a letter that everything is fine or they’ll get the letter from the Summit County aggregation. Everything will get straightened out in the next couple of days,” Ruhe said.
Working to get it fixed
Jason Dodson, chief of staff for Summit County Executive Russell Pry, said Direct Energy was notified as soon as the county became aware of the issue by a reporter and was told to fix the problem immediately. It was Direct Energy’s responsibility to notify the customers of the aggregation, Dodson said.
“Certainly on behalf of the county, we are sorry for confusion. It was not the intention of the county. Certainly, we did not know this would be a problem beforehand. Now that it has come out and there is an issue, we’re going to work with Direct Energy to get this fixed,” he said.
Direct Energy, with operations in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and 10 Canadian provinces, has its North American headquarters in Toronto and what it calls “main offices” in Dayton; Pittsburgh; Sarasota, Fla.; Houston; and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a subsidiary of British-based Centrica, which was formed in 1997 after being broken up from British Gas plc.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/blinfisher and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty.
