Official Billing Dispute & Predatory Collections Complaint Against Xcel Energy

To the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) & DORA Investigators:

I am filing an official billing dispute and formal complaint against Xcel Energy regarding systemic billing inflation, explicit violations of the state-mandated 6-month underbilling recovery limit, breach of a negotiated agency hold, and verbal harassment/coercion by an outbound customer representative.

1. Household Vulnerability Status
I am a verified low-income consumer actively enrolled in SNAP and Medicaid. There are three minor children residing in my household. Xcel Energy has been fully aware of my financial and household status, yet they have repeatedly bypassed standard consumer protections to execute disconnections.

2. Complete Financial & Move Timeline

• December 2025 – April 2026: Received a $40 monthly LEAP subsidy totaling $200 applied to my utility costs.
• February 3, 2026: I completely moved out of my previous home and into my current residence. I have not resided at the old property for over 6 months.
• April 2026: Utility services were officially transferred over to this new address.
• Early June 2026: My county caseworker successfully negotiated an explicit no-shutoff agreement/hold directly with Xcel following a separate $1,000 state-approved assistance payment.
• Two Weeks Later (June 2026): In a direct breach of that brokered agency agreement, Xcel’s automated system executed an active physical disconnection of my power.
• Past 11 Months: A combined total of $2,877 (including out-of-pocket payments, the June crisis grant, and LEAP subsidies) has been paid to Xcel Energy toward my account. Despite this massive surplus paid in under a year—which averages over $261 a month and far exceeds the average consumption cost of a standard Colorado household—Xcel continues to demand an active, rolling balance exceeding $2,000.

3. Mathematical Billing Anomalies & Errant Usage Jumps
My monthly utility statements show clear evidence of erratic "catch-up" estimated billing practices:

• May 2026 Bill: $95 (Under-estimated baseline)
• June 2026 Bill: $400+ (Artificial catch-up spike)
• July 2026 Bill: $120 (Actual normalized usage)
  This extreme variance demonstrates that Xcel failed to read my meter accurately upon transfer, delayed processing, and then illegally front-loaded historical deficits into a single 30-day billing cycle to engineer a past-due balance.

4. Coercion and Admission of Illegal Back-Billing
Following my initial complaints, an outbound Xcel representative contacted me and utilized aggressive intimidation tactics. When I repeatedly and explicitly requested an itemized breakdown of where this $2,000 balance originated, the agent denied my right to a breakdown, told me my SNAP and Medicaid status "did not matter because I don't just get free power," and threatened an immediate real-time disconnect if I did not comply.

Under extreme duress, the agent forced me to agree to a $500 down payment. Crucially, the agent explicitly admitted the source of the debt on the recorded line, stating: "Oh, it’s just old usage from 2024 because we never got a payment in 2024."

5. Executive Team Culture Admission
In a subsequent call, a sympathetic representative from Xcel’s Executive Customer Relations Teamattempted to assist me with a temporary budget plan. During this recorded interaction, the Executive Team member openly admitted to me that she actually gets reprimanded or "gets in trouble" by Xcel management because she actively tries to work with low-income consumers on realistic payment budgets. This corporate admission proves a systemic, top-down culture within Xcel corporate that actively discourages compliance staff from honoring affordability guidelines and low-income consumer protection rules.

6. Statutory Violations Cited

• PUC Rule 4 CCR 723-3 (6-Month Back-Billing Limit): By trying to collect on unmetered, uncollected legacy debt dating back to 2024 on a new residential account opened in 2026, Xcel is in flagrant violation of the state's strict 6-month underbilling recovery window.
• Illegal Balance Transfer & Account Blending: I have not lived at the old property for 6 months. Xcel is illegally holding my active 2026 residential service hostage over stale, disputed balances from a completely separate, closed 2024 property ledger rather than treating my new address as a clean compliance record.
• Consumer Coercion & Bad Faith Policy: The representative's phone conduct violates basic utility consumer protection standards against deceptive collection techniques, further highlighted by the Executive Team's internal admission that budgeting assistance is penalized.

Requested Remedies:

1. I request that DORA subpoena and audit Xcel's recorded phone logs from my account—specifically including the calls with the aggressive collector and the Executive Team representative—to verify these verbal admissions and hostile corporate policies.
2. I demand a comprehensive independent billing audit to trace exactly where my $2,877 in 11-month payments was applied.
3. I demand that any and all debt from the old property be entirely stripped from my current ledger, as I have not lived there for 6 months and the charges violate historical recovery windows.
4. I demand an immediate regulatory freeze on all automated disconnection actions to protect my three minor children while this case is under active investigation under Proceeding Number 25M-0265E.