The arbitration process acts as a sort of appeals court where customers can present their complaint to a neutral third party rather than the utility company itself. Before the arbitration process was implemented, residents’ only course of action started and ended with Entergy.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, The Alliance started hearing complaints from many New Orleans residents about the electricity service and bills they were receiving from ENO, though stories of Entergy’s unwillingness to work with its customers to resolve issues date back even farther.
For instance, a customer reached out to The Alliance in August 1998 regarding an issue he had with Entergy that summer. This person was a new Entergy customer with health concerns that required a stable energy supply and he wanted to ensure his energy service would be set up when he arrived. While he had service at first, it was inexplicably canceled three weeks later. Over the course of a day, the resident called Entergy numerous times and was told each time that either nothing was wrong or that he had requested the service cancellation himself. It took until 10:30pm that night for Entergy to turn his electricity back on. Eventually, Entergy realized that the previous tenant’s information had gotten mixed up with his and the accounts were showing the wrong address and customer information. However, a month later, the resident noticed that the information still hadn’t been fixed and his bills were being sent to the wrong address. This is just one example from our archives.
Residents were getting nowhere trying to resolve their issues directly with Entergy, so The Alliance worked with the New Orleans City Council to establish a formal arbitration process customers could use to dispute billing issues and errors. The rules were approved by the Council in July of 2001 and later added them to the customer bill of rights.
Adopting the dispute process was a great first step in the right direction, and The Alliance and members of the City Council hoped it would help residents more easily resolve issues with Entergy. Founder and former Director of The Alliance Gary Groesch said in 2001, when the arbitration process was initially approved, that “[f]or years, people have complained that [Entergy New Orleans] has been judge, jury and executioner, but those days are over.” Former councilman Troy Carter said, “[n]o one ever has to feel like it’s them against the world or that their complaints just fall into a black hole.”
It is more important than ever for local governments like the New Orleans City Council to pass protections for residents and to ensure that utility companies are held accountable for their lack of action when it comes to providing reliable and affordable utility services to consumers. Unfortunately, the arbitration process, officially called the Council Utilities Regulatory Office (CURO) Customer Complaint & Dispute Resolution Process, still exists today, but it has largely gone unused due to the burdensome requirements consumers must meet before they can formally submit a complaint.
According to a New Orleans Advocate article from 2021, the formal complaint process has not been used once, with City Hall saying that “all 71 complaints handled by the office in the past three years [2018-2021] were addressed informally, usually after being referred from a council member.”
So why isn’t the arbitration process working?
In theory, the New Orleans City Council’s dispute process, run by the Council Utilities Regulatory Office also known as CURO, allows New Orleanians to pursue outside mediation when they have reached a standstill with ENO. But before residents are able to utilize the process, they must first go through Entergy. This involves filing an informal complaint with the company, which is then given ten business days from the date the complaint was filed to find a satisfactory solution to the issue. If one has not been reached, the utility must inform the customer by mail of their right to file a formal complaint through the Council Utilities Regulatory Office. The customer then has ten calendar days after receiving the utility’s notification to file a formal complaint with CURO.
After the formal complaint is filed and the utility has been notified, an administrative hearing will be set. After the formal complaint is filed and the utility has been notified, CURO works to negotiate a resolution.
Where are we now and has anything changed?
As it nears 25 years since the City Council officially added the arbitration process to the customer bill of rights, many customers are struggling to use it, and most don’t even know it exists. The Alliance for Affordable Energy hears from residents every month who have concerns about billing errors.
Some residents have even taken to the media to try and get help. Entergy customer Brittany Ellis spoke to Anthony McAuley with the New Orleans Advocate in March 2021 and detailed her frustrating experience with unexplainably high bills and seemingly no way to correct charges. According to Ellis, she wrote to the Council Utilities Regulatory Office, an office “she hadn’t heard of until the Alliance for Affordable Energy […] told her about it.” Ellis’s case started with an unusually high bill of $1000 in January 2020, instead of the usual $150 to $200 she was used to paying. Entergy’s explanation when she reached out was that she was “being back-billed for previous underestimates.” Later that year, Entergy installed a smart meter that would supposedly help to save money on bills. Once again, Ellis’s bills skyrocketed to nearly triple the price from years prior. Ellis “said she spoke to at least 20 Entergy representatives” and her account was put under review. In September 2020, a new meter was installed that began to give more accurate readings. Despite this, “Entergy insisted she pay the delinquent amount plus late fees for the months” the readings were much higher than normal.
In February 2021, Entergy repaid Ellis roughly $750, though no explanation followed. While repaying Ellis was the right thing to do, there is no indication that $750 is what Ellis overpaid. The $750 also does not take into account the months it took Entergy to fix the problem, nor does it prevent this problem from happening to others. This is another example of how Entergy resolves individual grievances, but never dives deeper to fix the underlying billing issues. Ellis said she found it “laughable” when an Entergy customer service representative said her case was an anomaly. “You’ll find dozens of people on a daily basis wondering how their bill was calculated, how it got so high,” she said.
One resident contacted The Alliance in mid-2024 regarding an incorrect Entergy bill. When they purchased their building, their bill was charged to a different adjacent building. This was because of an illegal power line running from the adjacent building to the building they bought. Entergy said they would remove the line and replace the meter to correct the issue.
Despite the issue seemingly being solved, the resident soon figured out they were being double charged: one bill for the correct address and one for the incorrect adjacent building’s address. The charges listed were from both the old meter and the new meter. Entergy also said they had read the old meter after it had been removed, which should be impossible. How does one read a meter that isn’t there anymore?
This customer was concerned that “Entergy has been reading [their] neighbors meter” and charging them for the neighbors’ usage. This customer reported that Entergy “refused to provide any documentation of the work they did.” This is significant because documentation is a key part of entering the arbitration process. A customer must show proof that they have contacted their utility provider and attempted to find a solution before a formal complaint may be filed.
Another resident contacted the Alliance around the same time (mid-2024) regarding an incorrect billing issue. This customer noticed that their electricity bills were for an incorrect meter number. An Entergy technician visited their property and identified the correct meter number. Despite the technician verifying the correct meter number, this customer’s bills were not changed to reflect it, thereby inaccurately calculating their usage. They reported being “consistently overcharged.” The customer said they reached out to Entergy but nothing has come of it.
It is not clear in the customer’s communication if they submitted a complaint to Entergy or simply communicated with them regarding the issue. If they did not submit a complaint, then Entergy did not break with the arbitration guidelines that state that the utility company has ten business days from the customer filing the complaint to come to a solution. If the customer did submit a complaint, then Entergy did break with the guidelines and did not follow the arbitration process. Regardless of if the communication was a complaint or not, this customer’s situation still shows an instance of Entergy not following through with fixing customer issues when they are contacted about it.
Ellis’s story and so many others show a lack of response on Entergy’s part that resulted in long-term incorrect billing for households. This is especially concerning because the initial complaints seemed relatively easy to rectify, yet Entergy failed to do so. Entergy’s reluctance to correct the issues from the start snowballed into months of overcharging for energy usage and incorrect bills. The complaint and dispute process is supposed to help in situations like this, but if Entergy is unwilling to play its part in the process, problems will remain unsolved and residents will remain frustrated and left in the dark.
What Needs to Happen Next
The bill dispute process as it exists right now is not working, but the Council could make simple changes that would improve the process.
Many of the issues stem from Entergy’s lack of response and refusal to work with residents to resolve disputes. One of the biggest barriers reported is an inability to obtain a reference number or written response concerning their complaint status, barring customers from entering the formal complaint process. To address this, instead of a reference number or status, the Council could require proof of communication with Entergy, which is more easily demonstrated. Additionally, the Council could impose fines on Entergy for every valid, unaddressed complaint. This would create a monetary incentive for the company to actually solve account issues, rather than string households along for months to years.
But more importantly, the complaint and dispute process could be simplified and better broadcasted. Even finding the formal complaint process is difficult, as it currently lives on the very bottom of the Utility, Cable, Telecommunications and Technology Committee webpage. Given how frequently residents have grievances with Entergy, the complaint form should be more easily accessible and searchable.
However, for many families, the problem lies with their struggle to understand their bills. Entergy could host bill workshops, provide explainer videos on their Bill Toolkit website, and add even clearer explanations on the bill itself. We know the Council has heard complaints from residents, and Councilmembers could save themselves and their staff time responding to them if they did their part to make them easier to comprehend.
Bottom Line: New Orleanians need a better way to resolve their issues with the utility company. The Council has an obligation to ensure there is a dispute system in place customers can actually use should Entergy fail to follow the guidelines.
