Our Analysis of Summer Energy

No problems. Good rates. But its time to renew and they are offering higher rates to existing customers to renew with them than the rates they are offering to new customers.

Haven't had any problems. Had a 12 month contract. No monthly fees as long as you used 500Kwh which wasn't a problem. Time to renew. I understand rates go up but went from 8.9 to 13.3 and now charging a 4.85 base fee on top of 9.95 for anything under 1000Kwh. Even in the summer we don't genereally go over 800, so i would be getting a 10.00 penalty charge for not using enough energy, when everyone preaches save energy? We are switching.

I personally have had only good experience. Customer service is always so helpful and very patient. I am a single mom who has struggled from time to time to pay my bills and both Jeremy and Damaris work with me and even have waived my fees. I'm happy with Summer Energy and would not switch away.

Great promotional deal. Wish that it lasted longer.

Yesterday I gave a not so complimentary review of Summer Energy. I was upset because I felt like I had been taken advantage of because of being off contract. I wrote the review here and wrote an email to customer service all within an hour yesterday. Today I recieved a call from customer service wanting to "make it right". Apparently, the system never generated a notice for me that my contract was expiring. Since I wasn't notified Summer Energy's customer service gave me a credit for the overages I was charged and extended my contract at the low rate I was paying until my move date. (We are moving so I had to cancel my service and talk to them about my rate increase in one phone call.) The phone call yesterday got me nowhere, but today a representative called me and we had a pleasant conversation about what the problem was and what they would do to fix it. I was surprised and very thankful for Summer Energy taking the time to read my email, research my situation, then make it right all within one single day. Summer Energy just redeemed themselves in my book, and I take back my review from yesterday. I WOULD recommend Summer Energy but I do suggest you are very aware of your contract end date so you don't have to deal with any change in rates being off contract. Thank you for going above and beyond, Summer Energy.

Under no circumstance should you ever consider this company. The customer service is horrific.

They specifically stated that we would receive electricity on a certain day to which we didn't get electricity for over week after they stated they would supply it.

They changed the terms and conditions of service frequently increasing fees.

Finally, after the last terms and conditions change, I found I had the right to decline and be released from service. After waiting 30 minutes on hold, attempting to reach a customer service represented, I stated that I would like to decline the new terms and be released from my contract. The agent promised that I would not be charged an early cancellation penalty. Upon, the next bill, there was clearly an early cancellation charge. Then I had to wait yet another 30 minutes on hold before getting the response of "We'll look into it."

Further observations:
Price is reasonable, probably because they lack customer support.
Website is all but useless. It's cumbersome and poorly designed. The site contains no autopay ability and also no ability to store a form of payment requiring you to enter your information in every time you want to pay a bill.

Conclusion: DO NOT EVER CHOOSE THIS COMPANY. IT'S NOT WORTH THE PRICE.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY unless you want to deal with RUDE customer service agents and want to be charged fees that are not disclosed. They are dishonest!

Did a lot of research. Read a lot of reviews. Summer Energy appeared to be safe to sign up for a short term (3 month) service policy to see how they were...I have been a Reliant Energy customer for 6 years. I applied on-line, but was told via email I needed to call an 800 number to sign up for service. When I called the given number, there was no voice prompt for signing up as a new customer...REALLY? I made a random selection regarding connection to service, and did get a live one on the line. When I explained why I was calling, the customer service rep had no idea why I would have such a prompt to call this particular 800 number...REALLY? She put me on hold for a moment, came back on the line and told me the ONLY way to apply for new service was online ONLY, and that did not have the ability to take an application by phone...REALLY? Oh, and then she told me that their site ONLY supported Internet Explorer browser...REALLY?? When I told her I was on a Mac computer, and that Internet Explorer NO LONGER SUPPORTED MAC, she was like...REALLY???!!! So much for my experience w/ Summer Energy. I will not be back nor will I ever recommend them to anyone...REALLY!!!

In Jan, I accidentally paid my electric bill for $81 twice. I called Summer, and they said the $81 would be credited to my account. My next bill was for $0, and the invoice clearly indicated that this was from the $81 credit...so far, so good. My next bill (the last one I received) was for $53 due April 3rd, which I paid promptly well before the due date. Today, April 8th, I receive a phone call from Summer saying that I owe them $81. They said that they recently discovered that they actually refunded me the $81 in January, despite their specific claim when I called them that they would credit my account for that amount, and that now, 3 months later, they realized I owe them money. Oh, and they claim that the $81 was due on April 3rd, despite the fact that the last invoice they sent me clearly claims I owe $53 and that I haven't received any other notification of this until the phone call this morning, and that my account is now overdue. I told them that they explicitly told me, and that my invoices reflect, that I had an $81 credit; I explained that I plan out my bills and expenses carefully, and that I don't simply have an extra $81 laying around to pay them for the lies they told me on the phone when I contacted them 3 months ago about this. They told me they would send me to collections if it isn't paid by April 11th.

They will send you a $20 fee just for mailing a paper they didn't even need to mail. Horrible customer service. The price and promotions is what drew me in, but beware. Would NOT recommend! Shop elsewhere! I've have a great experience with Star Tex Energy and I'm going back to them!

This company has the most inefficient billing practices I have ever experienced. Once they receive a payment, it takes THEM 5-7 business days just to process it. They do not mark the payment received until after they process it, so it pretty much guarantees that every customer payment is assessed a late fee. Then, AFTER they process the payment, they send out a "disconnection" notice and charge $20 to the bill for sending the notice. This is AFTER the payment has been received and processed. And good luck getting anything from customer service! I only have a 9-month contract with them and will definitely not be renewing.

I sent them a check via B of A bill pay a full 15 days before it was due. Verified with B of A that the payment was delivered a full 5 days before it was due.
Fast Forward 2 weeks..., they claim they haven't received my payment, and, even though I have proof of payment, they refuse to refund the late fees and disconnect fees. Never mind that I wasn't disconnected because I payed AGAIN via credit card.

Threatened to sue me if I didn't pay their late charge.

Also, I signed up for a 90 day lock at a great rate. They only allowed me to keep it for 49 days. Said it was "the way my billing period fell".

These peeps are crooks.

They make their money, IMO, on late fees by not processing payments in a timely fashion.

Also, their rollover rate after day 49 of my 90 plan was to go up to almost .12 per KwH.

I signed up with Summer Energy online after searching rates through Power to Choose. I disclosed the appropriate info so they could check my credit. I have excellent credit by the way. Without notifying me, they charged my credit card $450 as a deposit.

Like another reviewer, I signed up for a 90 day locked rate. They sent me a notice with my first bill that my rate would be going up to about 12 cents just 45 days into the plan. It's a scam.... So, I switched.... Don't need a 12 cent plan, when my rate was supposed to be for 90 days.

Now they are trying to charge me an early disconnect fee because I didn't stay 90 days.?? Really? After they lied about my 90 day "guaranteed" rate? I reported them to the state.

Crooks. Liars. Cheats..... There should be a class action lawsuit against these jerks.

STAY AWAY AS FAR AS YOU CAN!!! Agree with previous reviews about online bill pay. Check was mailed on time for them to receive. They received the check and still send out a disconnect notice on the same day!!! Even after they confirmed that they have received my check, I get a collection email saying that I needed to pay up!!?? Customer service has EXTREMELY BAD ATTITUDE toward customer. I am running away as fast as I can. Seriously, spending a couple more pennies with other providers, and save a whole lot of headaches and anger with these guys.

Just do yourself a favor and stay away, this crap is not worth it. I have been using Bank of America Bill Bill pay for years and never had an issue until i signed up with this crap scam company, Summer Electric. Payment sent out on 8/5 and on 8/12 i receive an email that i need to make the payment asap by 5pm to avoid $20 fee. Ridiculous. Their website looks like it has not been improved since the 90s'. What a bad choice i made to go with them. Cant wait till my contract is over!!!

Partially my fault - when I signed up for the 3 month contract I didn't notice the fine print that said I'd get charged for using less than 1000kwh... That seems like a horrible way to approach electricity. I found myself cranking up the a/c one month just so my bill would be lower. Ridiculous.
Then, I get my 3rd bill, and my rate has gone from 6.9 to 11.7! Apparently 3 months doesn't mean 90 days, it means if it starts in May it ends the last day of July. Again, I should have found the date that my contract ended but I never had that issue with any other company. I started my service on May 27th, and they said the contract only covered May, June, and July. Since I expected to still have the low rate in early August, I didn't get around to changing plans until the end of August and then noticed my bill. I wrote to them about it and they said they were in the right. Just really dissatisfied with their service.

I signed up for a 3-month contract with Summer Energy on 22-May-13. In my mind, this contract should have run through 22-Aug-13, three months later. Apparently, Summer Energy does their contracting differently. Nowhere on my original confirmation letter does it indicate the expiration date. In very small text on the side of my June bill they indicate my contract expires on 31-July-13. Not only that, but Summer Energy then switched me to the basic plan and increased my rate from $7.5 cents/KWH to $12.5 cents/KWH, an increase of 67%. When confronted with this issue Summer Energy's customer service agents merely said "your expiration date was clearly printed on your June statement". Never going to use this company again.

I had Summer Energy for six months at a somewhat decent rate. My first impression was not good, as they sent me a disconnect notice on an account that was on auto pay ?! The second my contract expired they jacked up the price and my next bill was twice as high! I switched to another company immediately, but the damage was done. I pretty much lost any savings I had with their six month offer rate. Not worth it. sneaky!

This company offer cheap rates. Scam. You will receive your bill with a different due date every month. Never the same. This is how they get you. You will be charged a late fee and a $20.00 late fee notice on the same day if your bill is not posted to your account by the due date. You can pay your bill, however it will not post to your account until 2 days later and you will be charged a late fee. You will also be charged a $20.00 for a letter that was generated the same day of the due date although your bill was paid days ago. This company is a scam. Beware.

Summer energy does not warn you that contract is going to expire. and when bill shows up it is double or triple what you expect to pay which is not good when you are on a budget. You call customer service to find out what the problem is they tell you that contract has expired and that your stuck paying that bill. This what I get for being with them for a year and paying all my bills on time!!!!! Thank you very much Summer Energy.

When I originally signed up in 2013, their marketing campaign stressed no minimum usage fee. When I renewed, I was NOT told that they had changed their policy. The first bill included a minimum usage fee totaling $17.38 and a base charge fee of $4.26. These 2 fees are 23% of the bill. That is, 23% of the bill has nothing to do with the electricity I used. OUTRAGEOUS! I will not use Summer Energy again. I do not recommend Summer Energy. Stay away!

I signed a short term contract with Summer Energy because I knew I would be moving. My contract ended up ending about a month and a half before my move date. Off contract they have almost doubled my rate per kilowatt. I know they are well within their rights to charge a different rate while you are off contract, but I feel this is excessive. I feel as though I was taken advantage of, and even if I had renewed my contract my rate would have increased from 7 to 8 cents per kilo, while other company's right now are offering as low as a 6.7 cent rate. My off contract rate went up to 13 cents per kilo!!!! That's literally almost double. I expressed my concern to customer service, but of course I get the generic "I'm sorry you feel that way". The lack of concern and their questionable rate increases are enough for me to never use Summer Energy again, nor have anything good to say about my experience with them.

I used this company for nearly two years, and have had a lot of trouble with them. For most of the time everything ran smoothly, and I had a great contract price. Then in March 2014 I an issue where their online bill pay system acted like it took the payment, but didn't. I input the payment with my saved information on the webpage, and got a confirmation. While I was on vacation they shut off my power! They said that the payment returned, but there was money in my bank account. So I called my bank, and they verified that the transaction had never even gotten to them, so any error was on the end of Summer Energy. Even after verifying this, I still had to call back several time to get all the fees taken off. They refused to let me speak with a manager and had the audacity to tell me that they would never take any fees off my account again, like it was my fault!
In December 2014 they double charged my account when I made my online payment for my November bill. I let this slide since they are so hard to work with, and my bill was only $30 because I was in the process of moving, and was only at the residence half the time.
I was finished moving out in December, but was busy and didn't cancel until the beginning of January. The man I spoke with said he would close out the account and email me my final statement.
Today on January 29, 2015. I get a notice in the mail saying they are disconnecting my service for nonpayment! When I called, they said the account had not been closed, and there were no notes indicating that I had requested it to be closed! The person I spoke with said she would look into it, but my expectations at this point are very poor.

My July bill has an invoice date of July 2 and a due date of July 20. Unfortunately, I did not actually receive the bill in the mail until today, July 14, which is only three business days before the due date. Summer Energy's bill states that I should allow 7 to 10 days for receipt and processing of payments sent by mail. I wanted to make sure my payment would be received on time, so I immediately called Summer Energy's customer service line to pay the bill over the phone. Today, July 14, I was told that I could pay over the phone or over the internet, but there would be a electronic payment transaction fee of $1.99 or 1% of the amount of the bill. I explained that the bill had arrived at my house late, and it did not seem fair that I should be charged a transaction fee when I was doing an electronic payment to make sure that a bill that was received late would still be paid on time. The representative, Mary, reading carefully from her script, said the electronic payment transaction fee cannot be waived under any circumstances. She was both adamant and condescending.

What should we think about a company like Summer Energy that would choose to lose a reliable customer (who always pays his bill on time!) in order to collect a one-time $2 transaction fee?

Of course, I will make sure this bill gets paid on time, whether or not I have to pay the stupid $2 transaction fee. But my contract expires in two months, and I will not renew with a company that thinks my business is worth less than $2.

I signed up for Summer Energy under the understanding that they had no minimum usage fees. Not the case.

I am enrolled in auto pay, so the payment is automatically drafted from my bank account each month. For several months in the Fall they mailed me disconnect notices, then charged my account for the notice. The problem is I had paid each bill on time. They said that because they warned me that it would be disconnected if I didn't pay, I had to pay for the notice fees.

Their customer service is awful. They are lazy and don't try to help you. I was told multiple times that my account would be credited and prices would be fixed after they raised our rate in the middle of our plan. They admitted a mistake on their part - that's fine, things happen. It took me 4 charges and almost 2 weeks to get them to set the price back correctly. I was told since this was on their end and I had been asking for 2 weeks prior to bill due date that they would not charge late fees. When I paid my bill there was a late fee.

The bottom line is, if you value customer service and don't want to fight tooth and nail for the plan you signed up for, do not sign with Summer Energy! I was excited about a low rate and that simply didn't happen. Our bills are consistently $200+ and we live in a second floor 2 bedroom apartment.

I was on hold for 13 minutes before I spoke with a service rep who could NOT help me. Vastly understaffed customer service center.

They charge $1.99 to use a credit card to pay your bill.

The payment due date changes almost every month.

Not customer friendly.

I will change my electric provider as soon as my current contract expires.

They sent me a letter saying they were changing the terms of service. They were adding processing fees to pay your bill. The letter said if this is not acceptable you may terminate the contract with no early termination fee if done within 14 Days. I called to verify the letter and informed them I would be terminating the contract. I changed to a different company in less than 14 days but still got a bill for a $200 early termination fee.

BEWARE OF SUMMER ENERGY ELECTRIC COMPANY, they are by far the worst electricity provider, I don't see how they are even still in business...A moving company recommended them to me, so I guess they are all in it together, but Summer Energy jacks up your bill with hidden fees, disconnect your services before you are even 15 days past due without sending a disonnect notice even if you have never been late on your bill previously (but of course they say the did after 3 days past due), and the customer service is horrible on top of all that! Summer Energy does not value their reputable customers at all.

My bill arrived 8 days after their bill date but only 7 days before the bill was due. My only option was to pay the bill online and pay their 3.99 processing fee. I called customer service to find out what the problem was and was met with a not their problem attitude and told if the bill was late I would be charged a 10% late fee and it if was 15 days late, I would be served a termination notice. I assured the lady I wasnt planning to be late but was trying to figure out why it took 8 days to get their bill. No response!! I will not be renewing with them.