The PUC Complaint Scorecard, one of the primary resources for consumers to research Texas electricity providers, is once again out of date. Sadly, this isn’t much of a surprise, since the consumer advocacy purview of the PUC seems to have taken a backseat to…well…anything but updating their complaint scorecard.
As of today (4/29/13), the Complaint Scorecard hasn’t been updated since February 28th. That means that they’re more than one month late on updating their complaint scorecard for Texas electricity providers. And the latest data for consumers is more than two months old. If the PUC were updating it according to schedule, we’d have had the March scorecard posted at the beginning of this month, and we’d be days away from the release of April’s scorecard. But there’s no telling when they’ll actually get around to updating it. And now that summer temperatures are starting to creep into Texas, and a majority of people will be doing their shopping for new electricity providers, customers need the latest data more than ever to help them make informed decisions.
Of course, this isn’t the first time in recent memory that the PUC has been tardy with their scorecard. I’ve previously written about overarching issues in November of 2012, January of 2013, and February 25th of 2013. That means that outside of December (where I possibly missed it because of the holidays), the complaint scorecard hasn’t been updated on time in almost 6 months.
Ironically, the last time they updated their complaint scorecard was 3 days after the last article I wrote calling them out for failuring to keep it regularly refreshed. Coincidence? I guess we’ll see when they get around to updating it again this time. One thing is certain, however. It’s difficult to give the PUC any kind of grade other than “F” for their efforts on the scorecard to date.
UPDATE: After my post this morning, coincidentally, no doubt, the PUC updated everything for March about 2 hours later. It only took 29 days and one public question to get there.