I hate writing complaints about companies because I am actually a really nice guy. However, I believe I must report to the entire world how bad Affordable Power Inc. treats its contractors and customers. I am a former associate of Affordable Power and also one of its former customers. Below I will state the basic history behind the company and how they have always secrewed people over since its founding. Also there are links to very imporant articles that are MUST READS if ANYONE is thinking about doing business with this company. In the end of this complaint I will state my personal grievance against the company.

Affordable Power Ripping Off People since well before 2006: Affordable Power Inc. formerly known as Affordable Power LP. It has been actively engaged in screwing people over since March 3rd 2005. The company was founded by a group of 10 or so investors who were actively engaged in various small businesses. Kamran Virani was assigned the responsibilty of Heading up that company. So basically that makes him the President. I have had quite a few lunches with this person and have worked for almost a year and a half with Affordable Power Inc. Ok so when this company first came into existence they focused mainly on residential customers. I know what you all are thinking, why was this company called "Affordable Power <u>Plan</u>" when it first came out. I mean does not the title "Affordable Power" by itself do the job? Well just for all you curious fellas out there, Affordable Power Inc. used to sell something called prepaid electricity to its customers (you know like prepaid cell phone service with Virgin). So basically they would sell these prepaid "plans" to customers so that's where the title Affordable Power "Plan" comes from? Atleast that is what I could figure out, but anyway let me get back on topic.

Predatory Practices:
I have just have one word for their early marketing practices: "PREDATORY". They would sell prepaid electricity at extremely high prices to customers in low income neighborhoods. The people in these neighborhoods were already struggling to survive and barely making it day to day. They went down in their neighborhoods and charged them up the wazoo because they were money hungry! Just in case if you guys need more information about this, here is a link to a story about this: http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2243

Maggots sucking blood:
I remember walking into the call center of this company long time ago. They had like 30-40 employees scattered all over a cramped room on the phone talking to people wanting to sign up for "prepaid service". It reminded me of maggots ready to suck every single ounce of blood from unsuspecting customers. This practice was so successful that affordable power eventually expanded into the commercial market (yes they sucked enough people dry to get enough revenue comming in so they could move on to frying bigger fish).

Affordable Power makes it into the commercial electricity world:
So this company moves into the commercial market. This company started transitioning into the commercial market right after Hurricane Rita and Katrina and started picking up business as a result of the power company scandals in 2005. So let me get to what's important. This company was so badly managed that they had extreme difficulty adjusting to dealing with more complex commercial customers. Their customer service agents were rude and obnoxious. To plainly put it, they had too many untrained maggots running about their offices (that still hasn't changed).

We are big bad Affordable Power and we will cut off your electricity:
So this unorganized and completely disfunctional organization actually starts signing up customers. They pick up a large number of ethnic customers due to some of the 2005 power company scandals which helps them considerably in financial terms. However it seems that they weren't able to manage them very well. In 2006 they were fined $223, 000 for disconnecting their customers without notice (Yea good job maggots!). Here's a link to that article: www.puc.state.tx.us/nrelease/2006/102606a.cfm

My Greivance:
I am tried of a peice of crap power company like Affordable Power charging consumers so much money. They used predatory practices to acquire their initial customer load. They do not deserve to be supported by the good people of Texas. They have built their organization on the blood and sweat of the poor, hardworking people. I will not support this organization and I hope anyone else out there who is seriously thinking about doing business with them learn more about who they are and what they stand for. They are the prime example of what is wrong with Electricity Deregulation today.