Energy board offers price comparison grid
After years of complaints about energy retailers scamming customers and creating higher than normal energy prices for home owners, the Ontario Energy Board has created a price comparison model.
Centre Wellington Hydro General Manager Doug Sherwood said that people can now determine their rates if they can find an internet connection.
“The OEB did something that has some value to the customers,” Sherwood said in an email.
The premise is simple. The OEB created an internet link that people can use. They can click on it to do an estimate of what their hydro bill should be. Then, they can click on the retailer comparison, put in the rate the retailer proposes, and the system gives a side by side comparison of price.
The link is http://www.oeb.gov.on.ca/OEB/Consumers/Electricity/Your+Electricity+Utility.
Sherwood noted that one homeowner found that his wife had signed with an energy retailer that day.
They then used the link, and learned the cost from the retailer would be about $40 more per month. They had a ten day cooling off period and used that to drop the contract with the retailer.
There are new rules coming from the provincial government about that, too. When the legislation finally passes, Sherwood said consumers will have 30 days to drop a contract after they sign it.
