BELLBROOK — Bellbrook residents are sharing their frustration after they say they were promised a cheaper electric bill, but the, terms were suddenly taken off the table.
Customers told News Center 7′s John Bedell that they got an offer from a supplier that would save them money, so they took it—only to find out a couple months later the deal was no good.
“I felt a little bit like I was bait and switched,” said Kim Boedeker, Bellbrook resident.
Boedeker’s electric utility company is AES Ohio, and her supplier used to be IGS Energy.
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It’s listed on the back page of her bills at a rate of 4.8 cents per kWh from this spring. That’s when she started shopping for a new supplier.
“On the news actually, they were announcing how much the electricity was going to go up so that’s what initiated me looking to see what rates may be available,” Boedeker said.
She found Energy Harbor for a lower supply rate of 4.47 cents per kWh, so signed up for it.
Boedeker showed News Center 7 the letter confirming the new deal, but then, two months later another letter from Energy Harbor.
“Notifying me that I was no longer eligible because I was not in an unincorporated area of Greene County,” Boedeker said.
The deal was off because she lives in a city. Now, as of her July bill, her rate has jumped to 8.7 cents per kWh still with IGS as the supplier.
She showed News Center 7 online how Energy Harbor is listed as her current supplier.
She also showed a letter from AES Ohio saying Energy Harbor won’t be her supplier as of August 19, so she needs to select a new one.
Boedeker says she’s expecting to have Energy Harbor for just her August bill, a one-month-and-done deal.
“We’ve heard from about a half a dozen people via email and a couple of phone calls and certainly understand and empathize with any confusion,” said Rob Schommer, Bellbrook City Manager.
Schommer told News Center 7 Bellbrook has been able to lock in rates for an aggregation program for city residents they’ll be able to announce soon.
“So along with our program, we encourage them to check the specifics of that and compare to any others available to them and make sure that they have the options that’s best for them,” Schommer said.
This is a comparison Boedeker told me she’ll consider as she’s now back in the market for an electricity supplier.
“I’m trying to find some rate that’s going to be less expensive,” Boedeker said.
News Center 7 reached out to Energy Harbor Monday and recieved the following statement:
“Energy Harbor has determined some customers were mistakenly enrolled in the Greene County Aggregation program who were not geographically eligible for that offering. To comply with Ohio Statute, Energy Harbor notified ineligible customers they would be returned to their utility default service. Energy Harbor will also extend a retail electric offer with the identical price and remaining term to these customers incorrectly enrolled into this program. Customers who were geographically eligible to participate have not been impacted and remain in the program.”
To visit a website where you can shop and compare energy supplier rates to save money on your budget, you can go to https://energychoice.ohio.gov/.
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