| BlueStar Energy I just moved into an apartment where I have to pay the electric. Electric was included in my last apartment, but now I'm losing that.
I was thinking about moving my electric bill to Blue Star Energy. I wanted to see if anyone else had experience with them here. |
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 JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | Just a comed reseller. Just make sure they aren't gonna lock you in for a long time and you can get out without penalty. |
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| Sounds good. Thanks! |
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 jmdominiPremium
join:2000-05-04
Sycamore, IL | reply to Clever_Proxy
Used them for one year and was not very satisfied. My biggest problem was that months would go by without an actual meter read. So I'd get several low estimated bills followed by one giant bill to make up for their underestimating my usage, I think I got a $400 something bill at some point if I remember right. They always blamed it on ComEd, I don't know if there was any truth to that or not. All I know is it wasn't a good situation and it stopped happening when I switched back to ComEd.
They also at least at the time would only accept payment by monthly direct debit. I'm not a fan of giving companies the power of taking money out of my account without me getting to review the bill for errors first. |
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JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | said by jmdomini:They always blamed it on ComEd, I don't know if there was any truth to that or not.
Absolutely. Like I said they're just reselling. ComEd still reads the meter, handles outages etc... They have a perfect excuse when they're trying to screw you. That's why I said make sure you an get out without penalty. Honestly, I'd rather pay an extra few cents per kWh then deal with these resellers.
Remember when the lock in your natural gas price was big and a lot of people got screwed cause they were locked into 2 or 5 year contracts? |
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 JimThePCGuyFormerly known as schja01.Premium,MVM
join:2000-04-27
Morton Grove, IL | reply to Clever_Proxy
I never switched gas or electric. I considered it once but did not and the next 12 months were record low prices on gas.
Curious: if you have a comed smart meter are you tied to comed as long as you have the meter or can resellers have variable rate pricing as well? |
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 scoobyPremium
join:2001-05-01
Schaumburg, IL
kudos:1 | said by JimThePCGuy:Curious: if you have a comed smart meter are you tied to comed as long as you have the meter or can resellers have variable rate pricing as well?
I had to sign a 1 year deal when I moved to realtime pricing. I would guess after that you could switch back to normal pricing with a reseller if you wanted. |
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 DennisPremium,Mod
join:2001-01-26
Algonquin, IL
kudos:5
Chicago
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| reply to Jon
said by Jon:Remember when the lock in your natural gas price was big and a lot of people got screwed cause they were locked into 2 or 5 year contracts?
Yup they got my sister that way. She did it without ever telling me....she's just a sucker for door to door salesmen.
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JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | reply to JimThePCGuy
said by JimThePCGuy:Curious: if you have a comed smart meter are you tied to comed as long as you have the meter or can resellers have variable rate pricing as well?
I think the resellers pitch is usually that they have a "Low flat rate". Not sure what their rate is but but I doubt they offer variable pricing. Here's what I'm getting now with real-time.
During weekdays and late at night it can go as low as 3 or 4¢.
And the "smart meter" isn't really that smart. It still needs to be read by a person. Seems stupid but hopefully soon the data will be available online. |
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| reply to Clever_Proxy
They just got bought out by one of their competitors. So check and see if they're still doing residential pricing in Illinois. I used to work there in their IT dept. Decent company, but quite a culture of overworking their people. Just sayin...
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FractalSphere - "Maybe it's in the basement, I'll go upstairs and check" - M.C. Escher |
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| Well in the end I decided against it. I'm just using plain old comed service and powering down as much stuff as I can when I'm not home.
Thanks for all the replies! |
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