Acacia Energy bottom of complaint scorecard and called scam

The powertochoose.org puts out compliant score cards every month and to my surprise Acacia Energy was at the bottom. I did a quick search for “Acacia Energy” on Google and found several complaints on pissedconsumer.com.

Reading through a few of them it became quite clear the company had pissed off some of its customers. We have seen the same disgruntled customers who get on what they call a “Prepaid Electric Provider Scam“. Sometimes there is merit to the scam claim and other times they are just not happy with the price.

The price can be said to be one thing by the person selling you the electric service and be written different in the legal jargon in the contract and “Electricity Facts Label”. Sales people should not be trying to fool you but it happens in every industry so reading the contract is important.

I decided to go visit Acacia Energy’s Facebook page to see if the company was trying to connect with its customers over social media; however, I found more complaints. Many companies use social media as an ear to the ground for customer complaints. In the case of Acacia, social media was being used just to advertise and get more customers.

I’m sure any reasonable person looking around on the internet would not trust Acacia Energy. Some complaints I read said the company was a “scam” and “rip-off.”

Acacia offers prepaid electric services to consumers in Texas deregulated energy market. Ok that is a bunch of jargon but it is true.

Prepaid electricity service is very similar to prepaid phones. Minutes, for a phone, is like kWhs for electricity. Loading a prepaid phone with a thousand minutes and only using 990 still means the ten left over is paid for. Prepaid kWhs is always higher than normal plans. Rates vary from twelve cents a kWh to ten cents a kWh. Rates for non-prepaid plans are under nine cents a kWh. Acacia’s prepaid plans are competitive compared to other prepaid plans on the market.

People calling Acacia Energy a “scam” most likely are just comparing prices and get pissed they are paying more. Scam is such a dirty word; I wish people would just stop using it completely. A polite way to summarize the complaints is saying “Acacia Energy does not have the most competitive electricity rate on the market at this time.”

There are several electric companies people can say the same thing about. The complaint scorecard is full of other companies with complaints on the web. It just so happens, Acacia is not doing a good job of managing the complaints.

Should customers buy electricity from Acacia Energy?

I’m never going to tell anyone not to buy from a specific company; however, here are some basic things I want my electric company to have:

• Online bill pay
• Fixed rate plans
• A+ BBB rating
• Competitive prices.