CPS Energy

This is a city owned public utility. Service is always great and the rates are the best in Texas.

I spent an hour of my time on a phone call to CPS Energy on 7/5/13 to find out why they had not withdrawn any payments out of my bank account since April, as I had arranged. I was upset because my bill had accumulated to $254.17, a difficult-to-manage amount for me, a single parent awaiting unemployment benefits. I told the CPS representative that I had the money in my bank account and I absolutely needed it to be withdrawn so my amount due would not increase. The representative assured me that $254.17 would be withdrawn on July 12 and my balance would then be cleared. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. On 7/25/13 I got a CPS bill for $441.52! On 7/26/13 I spent an hour and a half speaking to 3 CPS employees trying to get the problem resolved. After speaking to a rude supervisor, Ms. Davila, I asked to speak to someone in charge of electronic payments. I was transferred to Ms. Robledo in Customer Solutions who stated the balance accumulation occurred due to the meters not having been read, only estimated. Also, Ms. Robledo stated CPS Energy was waiting for me to call them to approve the lump sum payment. I told her, estimated readings had never prohibited automatic payments in the past. In fact, when I went in to my local CPS Energy office a few months ago to inquire why my February bill was $310.51, the representative explained it was because previous months had been under-estimated, yet still automatically drafted, and I was compensating for the differences. Furthermore, I explained, I DID call on 7/5/13 and authorized the lump sum payment for $254.17. Ms. Robledo assured me that, at this point, the $441.52 would be automatically withdrawn from my bank account on 8/12/13 as I had arranged at the start of my utility services. On 7/31/13, I received a Disconnection Notice from CPS Energy. I called Ms. Robledo at 12:21 on 8/6/13, but had to leave a message. CPS Energy’s mismanagement of the automatic payment system is costing me wasted hours and placing me and my son in a very serious financial bind. I will continue to work to resolve this matter on my own but I would like you to keep this complaint on file so that the public can know what kind of service they can expect to receive when they utilize CPS Energy as their power source.