Verde Energy USA Facing Suit Over Alleged Bait-and-Switch Price Gouging for IL Consumers

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A proposed class action has been filed against Verde Energy USA, Inc. that seeks to challenge the company’s allegedly “deceptive and improper” overcharging of Illinois consumers who the plaintiff claims have paid “considerably more for their electricity than they should otherwise have paid.”

According to the 23-page lawsuit, Verde Energy has pounced on the deregulation of the retail electricity market in Illinois by baiting customers into switching energy suppliers with “false promises” of variable rates in line with market conditions. Consumers are lured into signing on with the defendant with an offer of a teaser rate lower than that charged by local utility companies, the case continues. After this teaser rate expires, the suit says, Verde then switches customers to a variable rate. 

Yet the rate consumers are charged by Verde is not based on market conditions, the lawsuit alleges, but rather an “inflated rate based on [the company’s] price gouging.”

“[Verde Energy’s] representations are deceptive,” the plaintiff charges, claiming that even when the market price dips, Verde’s rates remain inflated. “In fact, [the defendant’s] variable rates are substantially higher than those otherwise available in the energy market, and are not reflective of the market conditions on which [Verde] purports to base its variable rates.”