AG: Worcester residents overpaid $400K for electricity in just one month
Photo | State House News Service
Attorney General Maura Healey
Massachusetts customers who bought electricity from competitive suppliers paid $426 million more in bills over the last five years than they would have if they stayed with their traditional utility companies, with low-income folks and people of color shouldering the highest rates, according to a Thursday report from state Attorney General Maura Healey.
The disproportionate losses were concentrated, particularly, in Gateway Cities, with Worcester residents, for example, collectively overpaying $400,000 in the month of September 2019, alone, more than any other city or town in the state. Moreover, low-income residents are nearly twice as likely to sign up for competitive electric suppliers, and are then charged more than other non-low-income residents.
“We’ve heard far too many stories of these companies going door-to-door and calling residents over and over with false promises of cheaper electricity bills, only to stick customers with a higher rate and a contract they can’t get out of,” Healey said in a statement. “It’s time to pass legislation to protect our residents from these inflated prices and put an end to this deception.”
Approximately 450,000 individual residents in Massachusetts are enrolled to receive electricity from competitive suppliers. Those residents lost $173 million in the last two years, Healey’s office said.
Healey, along with State Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn), and State Rep. Frank Moran (D-Andover), filed legislation earlier this year which would ban such companies from signing up new, individual customers.
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