Xcel Energy
Reviews and Complaints

On Thursday 12-17-09 our residential services were disconnected due to being one bill behind (reduced to one income due to medical reasons) and there was no notice given. Now, I understand that the company was within their right to do this, however, we paid the outstanding amount due and were told that services would be restored most likely that day, but surely the next business day... Well, it is now Monday the 21st of Dec. and we still have no power in our home! Each phone call has generated another layer of ### from their associates and delay tactics about how they are "so busy" and reconnect services in the "order that they are received". Our home is all electric, nothing works without the power including our telephone. We have no heat (which at night the temp is below freezing) we have no hot water, no refrigeration, no stove use, and of course no lights. This close to xmas, I cannot believe that this unethical company would even disconnect people that are so barely behind in their payments, much less make them wait 5 days before restoring their power. We have been told that they have many of them to do and that is why it is taking so long... they can't "guarantee" a time when services will be restored. HOW inconsiderate?!? It takes preparation and planning to account for that long without power in the home and they can't even try to give an accurate time or date much less? They claim that they legally have 7 working days in which to restore services... I have bee unable to verify this particular claim. Am I the only one that believes that it seems as though they are trying intentionally to delay restoring services in order to punish their customers for being late? Why else would they do it? Has anyone else has this experience... I never had before and I am appalled at the lack of concern for our needs. We need power and it's nearly xmas and we may or may not have it by then. This company doesn't even have a local office that is "equipped to deal with the public"! What type of ### is that? All we have is a 800 number to call and get the run-around over and over again. We were behind, but we met their terms, why wont they do what they told us they would. I will be contacting the PUC tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get somewhere there... I despise this company.

I am a student and as I called to make a payment on my 40.61 current account I was told I owed 366.65. Turns out that xcel energy transfered my sister deliquent account to my current account becuase in the summer I made a payment for my sister using my checking account and since my sister does not have a active xcel energy account they matched my checking account from her xcel energy account to my xcel energy account and they now hold me responsible for paying the full balance. They said the apartment manager confirmed that I lived with my sister, I contacted the mangement and they said they management did not confirm in fact they noted that I was never on the lease and she even contacted them but lady name tony at [protected] said that makes no difference. My sister called them to make arrangement and take responsiblilty for the account and tony told my sister that she needs to make payment arrangements with me and they can't talk to her about my account which is my sister account. I have never signed a lease with the apartment or contract with excel at my sisters adress I just made a payment for her once to help her out. I was never a primary or secondary or third party on my sisters xcel energy account, tony says its a mn law called benifitting from service, but yet my sister had a roomate that lived with her on the lease and they split the bill and when I asked tony about it she says "I will not go through this with you again this bill will stay under your name" when I had no knowledge about the bill and now I am showing deliquent on my excel energy account when I never had a past due balance under my name. I asked tony to provide me documents showing that I lived with her and she says "that I have to provide information showing that did not" which I can't cause I was not under any lease during the summer, I stayed with my dad. I am heartbroken about this oredeal, but I told her I will never pay on this account. The good girl gets punished for being responsible, really they just screwed themselves over cuz they aint getting penny out of me. Anyways... God bless me and have mercy on them:)

Exel Energy is a complete rip off, very unprofessable, our electric bills are so crazy high compared to our neighbors, and all Xcel Engery can say is that you can not compare bills, they want us to do an engery audit which Xcel Energy pays 3/4 of the audit and you pay 90 .00 of, how stupid do they think i am, they are a complete monoplized RIP OFF !, there credit dept, including a rep, by the name of Nick, as we are being targeted now, harssing letters, and the like, can not get any help from them at all,

My little family lives in a tiny one bedroom apartment above a garage, and we haven't used our furnace since Jan. '08, so the only gas being used in our house is our apartment size stove. And yet our bills were getting to be $119, for just gas! That doesn't include our electric! Our electric was at $251! Mind you, our little apartment consists of 5 light switches for four rooms. We have one laptop which is only plugged in when it needs to be charged, which only takes an hour to full charge, two tvs and a small stereo. Can anyone explain how the hell our gas and electric can be that high when we have nothing!

I am one of the unfortunate millions that have become victimized by this huge monopoly called Xcel. These people are the absolute bottom of the barrel and the only game in town which is the attitude you encounter no matter who you have to talk to or how many times.

My ex left a huge past due amount when he ditched his family a few months ago. Even though I was never on the lease or the Xcel account, I am being harassed because I am the only one they can find. I was instructed by three different Xcel reps that all I needed to do was open an account in my name only, pay my bills on time, which I have, and they would pursue my ex for the past due amount. I did as I was told in opening a new account but Xcel has rolled my ex's past due - $500 + - into my account because he is nowhere to be found. Even though I have provided his new address and phone number, they continue to hound me. None of the other utilities my ex stiffed has done this - only Xcel. My guess is because I am paying for all the other ex's that ditch their families and all of the foreclosures that aren't paying their bills. Xcel is going after only those few they can actually find and harass. Where else are we going to go? It's not like we have a choice.

This isn't the first time Xcel has screwed with my billing and unless I can move, it probably won't be the last. Don't bother with filing a PUC complaint because they are a waste of time just like trying to find an intelligent person at Xcel is.

My Electric and gas usage (via meter readings) is way less than the caps and the taxes. $56.00 for Electric and Gas bill realtime. Grand Total of $122.00. I called and asked for details and conversion factors and math used. NOBODY at excel knew or had the knowledge about it. I could not get a single intelligent source on even explaining the bill details. they had ABSOLUTELY no idea about what the numbers meant on the bill.
(called on Dec 29th 9.00 P.M. 2008, after the sticker shock bill)
Ideas are welcome! Who do I ask now that I am stuck with Excel and no alternatives?

We are a military family and moved out of our condo and canceled service in June of 2008. We moved to Texas and placed our house on the market. The house did not sell until Oct. of 2008. It was sitting completely empty and unoccupied until it sold. Now Xcel is billing us $205.74 for services provided between June and Oct.

I called to ask what the bill was about, and was told that since we had owned the condo we are responsible for paying the energy usage. I replied that I should not be held accountable for the bill because I had specifically CANCELED the service! And it's not my fault that since Xcel did not turn the power off to the property it was still consuming energy.

Their response is that they never turn the power off, they just take your name off of the bill. And since I did not turn the breakers off I'm responsible for the consumption. I asked if they had something in writing stating that I'm responsible for turning off the breaker after canceling services to avoid getting charged. Their response was no.

When I asked for all the information needed to contest this bill I was told to 'look online'. I said no that is unacceptable and asked that all the papers necessary to contest this bill be mailed to my current address. So I can document all communication.

I was speaking to Specialist Carmen employee # 6263.

I had also asked to speak with someone of higher authority who can help me with this issue. I was told by Carmen that they would have to call me back, so I gave her my number and had it reconfirmed twice. This all happened today so I'm still waiting for a response. I was told that they usually get back to me in the same day.

I had damage to my natural gas line in to my house. I understood that it would be an expensive repair bill, but the bill that I received was outrageous. The final bill arrived and the materials were charged at $68 and the equipment was charged at $119. No problem, that's the cost of materials and goods.

The part that is in dispute is this: I had two service-men at my house for 3-4 hours, it was more like 2-3 hours but I added in an hour of drive time to get to my house and back to their home base. The labor cost line item for 8 hours labor: $1, 684.37.

So apparently I must have had the CEO and CFO of Excel working on the line at my house. I'm not 100% sure but, $200+/hr is not the going rate for any service field.

Final bill almost $1900 for 4 pipe fittings and 6-8 hours labor, talk about extortion.

I just paid my bill and was surprised at the cost. It was over 140$! Let me explain why this bothers me. All of November, I not once turned my heater on (and yes my small 700sq ft apartment got down to 50f). It wasn't on low, I mean it was off. O-F-F. I have 2 computers in there that aren't used very much and site on idle or standby (consuming very little electricity, and one of them is 80 certified if you know what that means).

Me and my girlfriend share this small apartment, and both work long shifts (I work 12 hour shifts, she has 10 hour shifts) so we don't spend a lot of time home.

I was expecting, maybe 40 bucks at the most. But over 140! And to make matters worse, they've done this every, single, month. I used to live in a place that was 3x larger. Had between 3-12 people in it at any given moment, with 4-12 computers running (playing games), 2 tvs on, the stove, up to two microwaves, the AC on full... and never saw a bill over 70$ (In alexandria). I fail to see that the mark up of moving to the cities could hardly justify a 200-300% markup for the same power grid...

I've called them about the problem before. They basically said they don't make mistakes. They even refused to show me were my meter is, why are they hiding? If I had an option, I would leave Xcel energy in a heartbeat. The fact they have a monopoly on the thing makes it all the worse.