Texas REP Would Pay $60,000 to Resolve Staff Investigation

Entrust Energy, Inc. would pay $60,000 under a settlement with Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas to resolve a Staff investigation into alleged violations of consumer protection rules.

Staff had alleged that Entrust was not in compliance with the following rules:

• P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.474(h)(5)(C), relating to verification of authorization of telephonic enrollment. Staff alleged that Entrust initiated a switch without the consent from the applicant.

• P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.474(i)(2), relating to record retention. Staff alleged that Entrust failed to submit copies of materials, including recordings of solicitation calls used to obtain a customer's authorization of enrollment, because a third party vendor lost such records during an information technology outage.

• P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.475(c)(1)(A), relating to general disclosure requirements. Staff alleged that Entrust utilized a sales script which provided unclear and/or misleading information in the solicitation of enrollment.

• P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.483(d), disconnection without prior notice. Because of failure to record an address change, Staff alleged that Entrust authorized disconnection of service for a customer without proper notice.

Prior to settlement of this matter, Entrust took corrective action including but not limited to establishing higher quality standards for third party vendor sellers, terminating certain other third party vendor relationships, establishing an in-house sales staff subject to expanded training and quality control, employing experienced legal and regulatory staff, and enacting other internal quality control measures to prevent future occurrences of the violations noted above. Staff said that the actions taken by Entrust have had a positive effect by substantially reducing the number of complaints filed against Entrust regarding the matters addressed in the settlement.

Docket 41926