Champion Energy Services

Normally, I just apply online to establish my date of service, and the lights were turned on then. It’s more so like the convenience of it. When I know that I go online, I put in my Social, I'll wait a couple minutes, and they tell me that I’m approved, just like I did recently. So, I went on the week before, I applied, my service is established, and when I went over there Friday evening, the lights and everything were turned on. Even on top of that, just like the few days that I was billed for, the bill was only 50 bucks, which was great.

Champion's got one of the best deals around. We've been with them for about 15 years now and doing the renewal is fairly easy. They’re straightforward. A lot of the other companies are kinda shifty. They’ll charge things like base fees and user fees that are not easily identifiable when you're looking at the plans. That's part of what I tell our residents. They can go with anybody that they want. We go with Champion because traditionally, they’ve had among the lowest prices. They may not have exactly the lowest price but they’re almost always the lowest priced, and also a lot of companies will have a lower price for a higher usage. The price that they advertise is the 2,000 kilowatt-hours per month plan. But most of our units don’t use 2,000 kilowatts of power each month. It’s well below that.

If you're looking at a plan from Reliant versus a plan from Champion, and Reliant’s plan says that it’s 9.8 cents per kilowatt-hour versus Champion's plan at 10.3 cents per kilowatt-hour, that looks like Champion's more expensive. But the reality is that if you look at under 500 or under 1,000 kilowatt-hour usage, it might be significantly lower, which it usually is, and that Reliant will also charge an extra fee with a below 800 kilowatt-hours of usage each month. So, all these things go into the price that most people don’t know to look for.

I have many different accounts with Champion and every one of them has been really good. There was one a while back where one of the gentlemen told me that if I wanted the service faster, I could pay an extra $35. It didn't end up happening. When I called again, they told me, "We don't even offer that," and my account was credited back. The person that I spoke to at the end ended up resolving everything. Other than that, everything has been perfect. It's been an A+ experience with all the services that I've gotten.

One time, I called Champion because I had a patient who didn’t have electricity for a week because Reliant had cut him off for non-payment. I’m a physical therapist and he was a disabled veteran who had no money. He was living in an apartment complex and Champion got him electricity with no deposits. He didn't even have to pay his Reliant bill. It was awesome. Champion Energy does good work and I like them. In fact, every time I get a chance, I get somebody to switch to Champion. They have a program where I can make money if I refer people and I’m always talking about what a good rate they have and what a good company it is. I have referred five people, which has made me a little money and also made them a little money on their bill. So I like that.

Sometimes the installation has gone really well but sometimes it has been a difficult experience because the window that they give us to be at the house, when it's a vacant house, is just a really huge window and you don't even have a place to sit or anything to do at the house. With another company they have a builders department. As a landlord or investor who's flipping houses, you can go through the builders department and you've got the same contact that you would use over and over again. They set up very streamlined turn ons and offs and we don't have that with Champion.

There was also one bad thing that happened when I bought a house from someone, subject to their existing mortgage. They were going through foreclosure so the way that I bought it is I took over their payment from their mortgage. The mortgage on the house is still on their name, but I pay it every month. There wasn't any kind of legal documents and they still have access to the mortgage to see that I'm paying it. They were having some other financial troubles and they wanted to make things difficult for me so they were calling Champion. Even though the service is set up in my company name, they called Champion twice and got them to shut off my service.

Since the house was under construction and there was no one living in the house that caused all kinds of havoc. My pool got shut down, so it turned green, which cost me a lot of money to get cleaned back out. My workmen would show and there would be no electricity and then it would take Champion a day to two to come out and turn it back on. I don't think that someone should be allowed to turn off service when the service isn't in their name. What they were doing was they were sending a copy of the mortgage statement that is neither here nor there if the service is in my name. They shouldn't have been able to turn it off. Someone should've at least called me so that was a problem. So dealing with Champion for my business has been difficult. Nevertheless, everybody has always been very nice and from a personal standpoint my service once turned on has been great

I switched to Champion from TXU on our personal home, initially, because we have another friend that uses solar electricity and he recommend Champion to us. It's probably the most economical of all of the providers in our area so that's why we switched and why I continued to stay with them, despite the difficulties I've had on the investor side. It's economical, for sure.