[HN Gopher] Texas woman sues Griddy after being charged $9,546 f...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Texas woman sues Griddy after being charged $9,546 for 19 days of
       power
        
       Author : alex_young
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2021-02-27 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | bluefirebrand wrote:
       | This is going to be very interesting to see the outcome of.
       | 
       | On the surface level this absolutely does appear to fall under
       | "Price Gouging during a crisis", but I suspect that the defendant
       | here will claim it was more "The cost of delivering power to you
       | at all was much higher than normal given the circumstances, the
       | alternative would be leaving you without power at all"
       | 
       | I don't have direct experience with Griddy but I was working with
       | some people in Texas recently. One of them was on a Real-Time
       | pricing schedule for his electricity. He could monitor his prices
       | using a phone app down to to a very granular level, I think
       | 15-minute intervals. It may have even been minute by minute
       | adjustments.
       | 
       | I think the existence of that sort of knowledge for the users
       | might play into the decision of this lawsuit. If the claimant has
       | a high level of transparency into their pricing over time and
       | just were not paying attention and continued to use electricity
       | as normal, they may not have much of an argument here.
        
         | rsj_hn wrote:
         | > On the surface level this absolutely does appear to fall
         | under "Price Gouging during a crisis"
         | 
         | No, no, no, no, this is absurd. You can't sue energy markets
         | for "price gouging" when spot prices shoot up. Do you sue your
         | broker for price gouging when there is a price spike in a
         | stock? What about wheat? If you don't want to be exposed to
         | spot pricing, don't play in the spot markets.
         | 
         | This is why energy consumers are historically kept out of spot
         | energy markets and instead get their energy from utilities. The
         | utilities offer stable pricing but in exchange the long run
         | price you pay is higher -- you are paying for that stability.
         | The whole point of griddy is that instead of getting your power
         | from a regulated utility which must get government approval of
         | price hikes, you think you can do better by being charged
         | market spot prices.
         | 
         | It's true that market pricing is usually below the fixed prices
         | charged by utilities but at the same time you bear the risk of
         | spikes.
         | 
         | Thus to call this "price gouging" is absurd as griddy does not
         | choose prices administratively but passes on the spot price to
         | their consumers. That's the whole point of griddy.
         | 
         | These people signed up to be exposed to the market price in
         | order to be free of stable pricing, as administrative pricing
         | is higher, on average, than volatile spot pricing.
         | 
         | They had no problem enjoying the cost savings when market
         | prices were lower, but now they want to sue when market prices
         | shot up? If you can't handle the volatility of spot markets,
         | then don't sign up for services like griddy and go with regular
         | utilities that have administrative pricing.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | responsibility wrote:
       | Play stupid games, win stupid prices.
       | 
       | The plaintif gambled and lost. I have zero sympathy for her.
       | 
       | To underline their culpability in the matter, the plaintif was
       | warned and encouraged to switch providers. They failed to do so
       | in a timely manner _and_ failed to reduce their energy usage.
       | 
       | Pay up and quit bitching.
        
       | throwaway69123 wrote:
       | I can't find the link so sorry no source. However I did see the
       | acquisition that it was the Texas regulator who was responsible
       | for artificially pushing the price of power up. So not really a
       | free market
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-02-27 23:02 UTC)