Complaint Review: SFE California - Buffalo New York

 A very well-spoken SFE salesman came to my door and PROMISED me 3 things: 1. One price for for my natural gas supply 2. No more tiered pricing 3. The same monthly price for my natural gas supply during the entire agreement (3 years) Pacific Gas and Electric provides our gas and electric service. He asked to see a recent PGE gas utility bill so I could realize the savings. He spent time going over my "guaranteed" savings and basically caught me hook, line and sinker. I signed up for the program and they get a person on the phone who speaks with me and asks if the salesman let me know about A, B & C, which he had. BUT there was one VERY important factor that I was not made aware of. PG&E would still bill me for "Delivery" of the gas. You have 30 days to opt out. I had not received a PGE bill showing any line items from SFE for gas for 2 months so no reason to opt out. When I did call asking about that, they said I should notice the savings on my billing on the next cycle. When I finally took a good look at a subsequent PG&E bill, I saw that I was getting billed for gas from both SFE and PG&E on the same bill. Furthermore the PG& E "delivery" charges were Tiered pricing, something else that was also not supposed to be occurring. I called SFE and was on hold for 20 minutes and they hung up on me. I called back and was on hold for 15 minutes and this time got through. I spoke to the gal on the other end of the line and she said that I was getting everything they promised. I said I can understand the billing for the SFE line item, but not the additional tiered billing from PG&E. She said, "Oh, that is for delivery charges.". I explained to her what the salesman had promised me and she said, "oh maybe he didn't explain it all to you - I will let management know. I can offer you a $5 per month discount for going "green" , BUT your 3-year contract will need to start all over." I told her that I was getting double-billed for gas and why would anyone sign up for that? She said it would cost me $278 to cancel the 3yr contract if I wanted to do that. She said she was sorry she couldn't help but would have management call me. That was that. Today (following day) I called PG&E to find out if there was anything I could do. They told me I could cancel the contract and provide PG&E with a confirmation number and said I should speak with a manager. So I called SFE back. Another long wait on hold and asked to speak to a manager. I waited again, for a long time and the same SFE employee came back on the line saying his manager was on the phone and he would ask the manager to call me back. I said when? He said he didn't know. I said today? Tomorrow? next year? Next month? Next Week? Come on! He said not next year or next month. I said really? He said this week. I told him I was calling to cancel the contract today and he said he could not help with that. I asked how the girl yesterday through out the idea of cancelling the contract for like $278 dollars. If she could cancel the contract, why couldn't he? Then he said, because I could not afford it. I told him the only thing I could not afford was to continue paying double for my gas! He said "So you want to pay right now to cancel?" I told him yes. Then I was put on hold again to get to the departments that handles payments. I paid with a CC and got the confirmation # and called PGE to give it to them and the gal at PGE said this company has been a huge problem for many PGE customers that tried SFE. She said they also sell all of your ID that they have - Name, House address and phone numbers to other gas providers and for the next year I will continue to get lots of calls and door-to-door salesman. If one person reads this and it helps, it's worth the time to report it. It is a Legal scam unfortunately from what I understand. They are supposed to provide you with all of the info upfront, but they don't. Why I bought from a door-to-door salesman, I will never know, but it won't happen again.