This Moment in Chicanery: Electricity Marketplace Bait and Switch

I learned two things from a recent (April 9) letter to my wife and me from a fund administrator for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:  I don't know the first thing about buying electricity, and our attorney general looks out for dopes like me.

"Thank you for being a valued customer of Starion Energy," the letter said.  "On August 18, 2020, Starion Energy entered into a final judgment by consent with the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General (the 'AGO').  The final judgment resolves the AGO's claims that Starion Energy, Inc. ('Starion') did not comply with certain provisions of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection laws in the course of marketing and selling Starion's electricity supply.  Although Starion denied the claims by the AGO, Starion has nevertheless agreed to establish a fund for the benefit of certain of its current and former customers."

The letter further said, "The Independent Administrator who administers the Fund has determined that you are eligible to receive reimbursement for a portion of what you have paid to Starion Energy for electricity supply services and/or fees.  Accordingly, enclosed is a check in the amount that the Administrator has determined is appropriate."

That check was for $263.33.  

We cashed it right away.  

Then I proceeded to find out why they sent us the dough. 

Online, I found a copy of a March 5 press release from AG Maura Healey's office announcing that customers of Starion were beginning to receive restitution payments as part of a settlement of allegations that it had used "unfair and deceptive sales tactics to lure more than 100,000 Massachusetts customers into expensive contracts with high electricity rates." 

These customers were collectively charged "millions more on their bills than they would have paid if they stayed with their utility company," the release said.

Healey was quoted thusly, "This company falsely promised thousands of Massachusetts customers big savings on their electricity bills, but instead overcharged them...We're glad to be returning more than $7 million to customers harmed by Starion's deceptive tactics."

The release cited a 2018 lawsuit accusing Starion, a company headquartered in Middlebury, CT, of violating Massachusetts consumer protection laws "by engaging in unfair sales tactics, including unsolicited telemarketing calls and pre-recorded robocalls that falsely promised customers lower electricity rates."

I asked my wife, "Do you remember our switching to this company?"

"Vaguely," she said. "A few years ago, I think it was, I spoke with a salesperson a couple of times who was saying how much money we could save on electricity."

"We must have talked it over then, but I can't remember that talk," I said.

She said, "You said something like, 'If we can save a few bucks, why not?' "

I said, "Do you remember what happened to our bills after switching?"

"The best I can recall, they went down for three or four months, then started going up," she said. "Before long, they were as high, if not higher, than before. I just figured, there's no beating the system."

"By the way," she added, "did you ever give electricity bills another thought?"

"Not once," I had to admit.

"How surprising," she said.

On the day we were having this conversation, there happened to be a letter in the pile of mail on our kitchen table from a different energy supplier offering to sell us electricity for three years at a guaranteed price of 10.99 cents per kilowatt hour.  

In a stab at being serious about our personal finances, I emailed a friend who knows a lot about electricity prices on account of his job.

"Is 10.99 cents a KW hour for three years a good deal, a smart move?" I wrote.

"I'm not a big fan of competitive supply options," he wrote back, "because the onus is on you to have to remember, and pursue, when your contract is up.  By contrast, your local municipal aggregator of electricity purchasers offers the same basic idea as a competitive supplier, without the mailings -- and with the bargaining power of more load-users, taking the need to do all the research off your shoulders.  As a result, what your aggregator is offering may not be the 'best' deal on the market at any particular time, but it usually involves less stress."

Yesterday, taking my friend's lead, I visited the website of the City of Melrose and filled out a form to enroll us as subscribers in the "Local Green" default (or standard) product offered by Melrose Community Power.  At the moment I enrolled, this product was priced at 10.521 cents per kilowatt hour.  

There was a feel-good aspect to the decision: at least 5% of the power we'll consume this way will always come from renewable sources.

 

MA Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO on Chauvin Conviction: 'Much Work Needs to Be Done'

Today, many organizations in Massachusetts issued statements on the conviction yesterday of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd.  All were good and worthwhile.  And one of the best came from Andrew Dreyfus, president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and a veteran of the Michael Dukakis administration.  

Dreyfus's statement was directed primarily at the company's 3,700 employees.  Here it is in its entirety:

"Many of us today are reflecting on the guilty verdict in the murder of George Floyd.  For the past week, our board member Quincy Miller noted, 'it has felt like our very humanity was on trial.'  In the end, Mr. Floyd's humanity was recognized.  His life mattered.

"And his death mattered.  Mr. Floyd's senseless killing, at the hands of a police officer sworn to protect him, spurred outrage and anguish in America, as well as vital dialogue and action.

"One verdict does not mark victory in a long fight for justice and accountability, but I hope it does mark progress in a battle that will continue.  We know we can only begin to heal as a nation if we act together to address racism and injustice.

"Our company is committed to racial justice and committed to doing the hard work of healing.  We are confronting the crisis of racial health inequities and working to create a more equitable health care system, especially for people of color.  We are supporting Black and Brown leaders in our community, including organizations focused on police reform.  Working together, we can begin to put an end to inequities.

"Much work remains to be done, in our company and in our community.

"Here at Blue Cross, we will continue our dialogues on racial equity and prejudice, including at next month's Company Connect and in June when, for the first time as a company, we mark Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the end of slavery.

"Racial injustice and bias bring pain and fear to members of our own community, and I have been proud to see our associates support each other and show solidarity.  Today, I encourage you to connect with others -- check on colleagues, reach out if you are feeling hurt.  We can take strength from our common values of respect, dignity, and equity for all."

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has nearly three million members.  Dreyfus has been a part of the organization's executive team since 2005 and its president/CEO since 2010.  Before that, he served for years in the leadership of the Massachusetts Hospital Association (MHA).

I got to know him back in the last century when working in public relations for community hospitals. I served for a spell on an MHA committee dealing with public affairs, which he staffed, and have since bumped into him occasionally at the State House or on a downtown sidewalk -- meetings all too rare for my liking.

If you ever want to encounter a truly upright human being, if you ever want (or need) the experience of being unmistakably in the presence of goodness, seek an encounter with Andrew Dreyfus.  

 

Massachusetts Has Billions of Reasons to Be Grateful to Uncle Sam

There's a Chinese proverb that says, "When you drink from the stream, remember the spring."

Pondering that ancient wisdom, I find myself asking: post-pandemic, will we in Massachusetts -- and our counterparts in the 49 other states of the union -- ever remember all that our federal government did to secure our lives and our standard of living in 2020 and in 2021?

If I were a betting man, I'd bet no. We certainly will not remember.

I believe that another proverb, reputedly an Irish one, holds sway in this situation; it says, "Eaten bread is soon forgotten."

And that is a shame.  

When we finally get our lives back to normal in these divided states of America, we will need a sustained swelling of collective gratitude. There will be no better way to leach the venom from our politics, rebuild the spirit of the nation, and begin the no-longer-avoidable process of truly uniting (and treating equitably) all Americans. 

Let's turn to a select few of the more recent reasons why we in the Bay State should thank God we had a federal government to fall back upon when all was cracking and folding in Massachusetts under the attack of the coronavirus...

According to a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation analysis of the Biden administration's recently enacted American Rescue Plan (ARP), Massachusetts will receive $4.5 billion in flexible Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds, "as well as billions in targeted assistance for programs closely linked to budget line items."

That targeted assistance will include $1.8 billion to support public schools, $1 billion to keep the MBTA and regional transit authorities operating, $510 million for early child care, $450 million for emergency rental and foreclosure assistance, $174.4 million for programs created under a new Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, and $150 million "to support the state's public health workforce."

There's more!

The ARP, for example, is expected to deliver $3.4 billion directly to municipal governments throughout Massachusetts, ensuring the continuation of vital local services and the jobs and paychecks of tens of thousands of municipal employees.

And, in a significant development apart from the ARP, the Biden administration has extended a federal public health emergency, which will lead to federal dollars covering most of a massive shortfall that otherwise would have occurred in MassHealth/Medicaid. the health coverage program for approximately 1.7 million residents.

I understand anyone who rejects the be-grateful-to-Uncle-Sam argument.  

People can legitimately say, This is my government, this is what it is supposed to do in a crisis, and, anyway, we the public are going to have to pay eventually for the borrowing of the trillions in federal aid we are rapidly consuming.

But I'll never buy that.

Too conveniently, too self-servingly, that kind of thinking ignores the simple good luck that has made us all Americans, by birth or immigration, and thus eligible to partake of the fruits of the world's largest economy and its most trusted currency.   

I'm so far into the other corner that I'll jump on the bandwagon of the first politician to propose that, starting next year, we make October 1, the first day of the federal fiscal year, an official day of remembrance, "Federal Government Appreciation Day," on which we stop and ponder how bad things could have been, how desperate we and our families could have become, if our government couldn't, or wouldn't, have borrowed our way out of this crisis.

UPDATE, 4-30-21:  According to tabulations by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Massachusetts has received more federal relief aid, per capita, during the COVID-19 national emergency than all but two states and the District of Columbia.  The top five per capita amounts recipients are: Washington, D.C., $12,845; New York, $10,881; Vermont, $10,340; Massachusetts, $9,893; North Dakota, $9,844.  Summarizing the foundation's report on this subject, the State House News Service on April 26 wrote: "As of April 15, Massachusetts had received $69.19 billion in federal assistance dating back to the start of the pandemic, which the foundation said was the 11th most of any state.  About $20.5 billion of that came in the form of Paycheck Protection Program loans, and another $11.36 billion was for federal pandemic unemployment compensation."