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Report Faults CenterPoint Energy’s Cold Weather Practices

June 24, 2005
Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch wants the state Public Utilities Commission to fine CenterPoint Energy $5 million for its axtions documents in a six-month long investigation of the company's reconnection practices during the cold weather months.

The report is based on a review of thousands of records from CenterPoint Energy, including company training manuals, form letters, customer service representative notes, billing records, and recordings of customer calls to the company. It outlines widespread violations of the Cold Weather Rule by CenterPoint Energy (CPE).

“CenterPoint Energy’s own documents show that their aim was to violate the Cold Weather Rule with no regard for the safety or welfare of its customers,” said Attorney General Hatch. “I am hopeful that the PUC will take action to make sure that the company can never, ever treat people so poorly again.”

The Cold Weather Rule is designed to ensure that Minnesotans of limited financial means are not forced to live without heat during the winter months. The Cold Weather Rule limits the amount of money CPE can demand from customers when they call to be reconnected between October 15 and April 15 and requires CPE to reconnect customers who agree to a payment plan.

The report concludes that CPE willfully and repeatedly violated the Minnesota Cold Weather Rule. For example, the report found that:

• CPE’s training documents instruct customer service representatives to always ask for payment-in-full and offer a payment plan “only as a last resort.”
• Rarely did CPE offer a payment plan, even when a customer specifically called to arrange one. For example, one customer asked: [C]an you guys put me on some kind of a budget or something to pay you your money a good little bit at a time? The customer service representative refused and continued to demand full payment plus a $150 reconnection fee.
• CPE took energy assistance money for more than 600 customers but routinely delayed reconnecting those customers -- persons whom the government aid was specifically targeted to help. In more than 60 cases, service was not reconnected for 10 or more days after CPE received the energy assistance funds.
• CPE customer service representatives repeatedly provided customers with false information about the Cold Weather Rule. Some customers were told that they had to obtain energy assistance funds in order to fall within the protections of the Cold Weather Rule.

In one case, the representative even denied that there was a Cold Weather Rule when speaking with a woman with a small child and a newborn, who was pleading to have her heat turned back on: "There’s no law at all that states that [the heat] has to be on…I mean, for accounts where the bill never gets paid, when we see that, we’re thinking it’s never going to get paid. So we have to turn-off to force it to get paid."

The report recommends that the Commission fine CPE $5 million for its unlawful conduct.

The Attorney General’s Office also requests that the Commission establish a claims process so that customers can be reimbursed for damages, such as burst pipes, resulting from CPE’s violations of the Cold Weather Rule.

The report also suggests changes to CPE’s reconnection policies and procedures to make sure that customers are not unlawfully denied reconnection in the future.

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