AMIGO ENERGY Fulcrum Energy is unethical and unrelenting in its business practices Houston, Texas

I read these comments and just felt like I had to add my little gem of a story to the pile.  I was using another power company (TXU I believe) and I get a letter from them saying that they were no longer going to be providing commercial service in my area (Round Rock, TX.) I get that letter at the end of the month in May of 2008 along with my final bill with that company, ($150, which was normal for my house at $.14 a kilowatt during the summer.) I pay my bill and assume I would soon be getting a letter from my new power company within a few days.

TXU did not ever specify which power company my contract had been sold too but they did say my new power company would contact me soon. About two weeks into the Month of June I receive a disconnect notice from Amigo Energy claiming that I had failed to pay my bill of $380 and would be disconnected in three days if I did not send in payment immediately. I call the company confused about my bill, assuming there had been some sort of mix up, and receive very rude treatment in which I am told that I should have paid my bill on time. This was only two weeks into the month you remember, and I had previously been on a monthly payment plan like most everyone else.

I frantically rush down to Wall-Mart to pay my new bill through the Wall-Mart version of Western Union, (the only way they would accept payment for some reason,) and pay my bill on the same day I received the letter. Three days later, I came home from work at around 5:30pm and find my power had been shut off. It just so happened to be a Friday and their customer service line closed at 4:30pm on Fridays and were only open for half of the day on Saturday. I spend the half of the day that their customer service line was open on hold until the automated voicemail service announced that they were closed for the day and recommend I call back on Monday.

I spend the weekend without power. Monday morning I call. Monday afternoon I call. At 4:00pm I tell my boss I have to leave early so that I can sit on hold until I can get through to someone, my boss says ok and I get on the phone.  After about 20 minutes of waiting on hold, a very agitated customer service representative picks up the phone and tells me that Im going to have to pay a $50 reconnect fee in order to get my power back on, even though I paid their bill before the deadline. I argue that they had no right to cut off my power because I paid the bill they sent me, to which the representative replied that if I had paid my bill on time in the first place this never would have happened. I NEVER GOT A BILL, I GOT A DISCONNECT NOTICE AFTER TWO WEEKS OF SERVICE I yell into the receiver. Click, the other end goes dead. The customer service rep didnt like my attitude I guess. Its Tuesday afternoon, my fianc who is 52 of twisted fury takes charge of the situation. She some how manages to find a personal cell phone number for one of the high-ups in the company. She spits and screams and lets out all sorts of evil over the phone until finally they give up and Amigo Energy rushes to reconnect my power that Friday.

 So to keep track of the basic math, I have just paid $380 for two weeks of service. I have no idea what rate they are charging me at because they have never sent me a bill, only a disconnect notice with an arbitrary balance due. So that is two weeks of the month taken care of, the third week of the month I spend completely with out power, there are thirty days in June so the remainder of the month consists of 9 whole days. On the 29^th of June I get a bill in the mail from Amigo Energy, again without an itemized listing of my rates or any information other than a balance due of $900.

 I call, my little power house of a fianc calls, nothing. No help from the customer service. I dont have the money to pay.  The number that my fianc had is quickly disconnected. Five days later I get a disconnect notice with a balance due of $1,400. Three days after that my power gets shut off. Fortunately, my fianc and I were not yet married and our electricity was in her name. I manage to convince a new and much better power company, (StarTex Power, I highly recommend them by the way,) to reconnect my power and they even offered me a much lower rate than I had started out with.

Unfortunately, it is now April of 2010, and my fianc still gets harassing calls and letters about her debt to Amigo Energy. As I write this, I am looking at a letter from their attorney who is threatening to sue us if we do not pay them the $1846.01 that we owe them.

I never signed up with Amigo, I was never given a choice in the matter. My fianc and I are just a couple of broke young college kids and we dont know what to do with this problem. I go online and I see other people with similar situations and if makes me angry, but I have no idea what to do about it.

So thats my long and ugly story, I hope people will read this and know to stay the hell away from Amigo Energy.