Complaint Review: Entrust Energy

BAY AREA ALERT! This review is in regards to Entrust Energy's gas procurement program, also known as a Core Gas Aggregation (CGA). Pacific Gas and Electric Company in Northern California offers the option to have your gas purchased and procured by a third-party company, if you so wish.

I was first introduced to Entrust Energy, a Texas company, from one of their door-to-door salesmen that had been roaming around my neighborhood in hopes of signing people up for the service. Through my long and extensive conversation that I had with this CGA salesmen for Entrust Energy, I found myself feeling rushed and pressured to sign an agreement between me, PG&E, and this CGA. The salesmen mentioned things like “you think I'm lying?” and behaved as if he was agitated that I had dared question this “service” that I was being given “privilege access” to. He also warned me about how other CGAs may come to contact me about using their service instead but that I should be wary about their contract lengths as Entrust Energy could be canceled at any time. Well, as it turns out, Entrust Energy and most CGAs cannot be canceled immediately. In fact, after calling up the Texas-based company personally and having them cancel their CGA, I had to wait two more billing cycles for them to “officially report” an end to my service to PG&E; as if I needed a middleman for that. PG&E corroborated on this story and confirmed that I would be paying the unnecessary fees, that I did not agree to, for another couple billing cycles.

What unnecessary fees you may ask? Well, I was first drawn into Entrust's offer, despite my better judgment, because they had stated that I would be getting a gas discount of about $0.30 or thirty cents per gas therm. That was a minor discount for the amount of natural gas that I actually used, but I figured any discount could not be a downside, especially considering that he guaranteed me that I would not be paying the “gas procurement fee” because of my low gas usage. For the first few months, this was true! I did not pay any “gas procurement fee” and I got a few dollars off my bill. However, later on the gas procurement fee was added to my bill in amounts of up to $15, regardless of my low usage. Keep in mind that my regular gas bill was usually around $15 anyways, before joining this CGA. Now I pay around double, or $30, for gas because of this bogus fee that the salesmen told me specifically would not be added to my account. Well, I did, but I have since, as of two billing cycles ago, canceled the service and now have my gas procured by PG&E, which halves my bill. How this company thought they could go outside of our agreement and charge me more money for a lesser service is beyond me. There must have been some fine print that I was rushed through (duress in legal terms) that stated they could alter their agreement without notification or permission. Never again.

Don't be fooled by the door-to-door salesmen asking for you to join their CGA. Like most snake oil and bad services, door-to-door sales almost always spell out bad news.