Economy Extra Energy
According to a media report, the electricity provider is trying to force price increases on consumers
Status: 11:39 am | Reading time: 3 minutes
“We have more and more complaints that there is no reaction to contradictions or that there is a negative reaction,” says the consumer advice center
Source: pa/pressefoto_korb/Micha Korb
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The electricity provider ExtraEnergie wants to impose drastic price increases on its customers and, according to a “Spiegel” report, is threatening customers with lawsuits. An electricity customer should pay 74 cents per kilowatt hour instead of 28 cents.
The electricity and gas provider ExtraEnergie is apparently using threats and harassment to force price increases on its customers. Like the news magazineThe mirror“ reports that ExtraEnergie and sister brands such as Prioenergie, HitEnergie or ExtraGrün are putting consumers under pressure.
Customers should pay maximum prices for electricity and gas and accept drastic tariff increases of over 200 percent in some cases – even though the energy providers had previously given them guarantees that prices would remain the same. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court had rated the price increases as “illegal”.
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According to court documents, the brands of ExtraEnergie GmbH, based in Monheim am Rhein, currently supply around 200,000 households and small businesses. The companies threaten customers to take them to court or report them to credit agencies if they do not pay the tariffs, which have been drastically increased since September 2022. Among other things, an electricity customer should now pay 74.04 cents per kilowatt hour instead of the contractually agreed 28.33 cents. ExtraEnergy demanded from a gas customer now 24.7 cents instead of the guaranteed 7.9 cents. In some cases, this increases annual bills by thousands of euros.
Consumer center: “Increased complaints”
“ExtraEnergie tries to intimidate customers as much as possible,” said Matthias Moeschler, founder of the consumer help electricity provider portal, the “Spiegel”. “We have more and more complaints that there is no reaction to contradictions or that there is a negative reaction,” said Gregor Hermanni, an energy law expert at the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia.
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Last summer, the district court in Düsseldorf issued an injunction prohibiting ExtraEnergie from unilaterally sending out letters with price increases “during the agreed period of price fixing”. ExtraEnergie therefore had to continue to deliver at the contractually agreed, guaranteed tariffs. In March 2023, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court lifted the injunction. The court explained that the company cannot be prohibited from acting on the basis of its legal opinion. At the same time, however, it called the unilateral price increases “illegal”.
ExtraEnergie is apparently also trying to cheat with the gas price brake. For example, the company recently charged a customer a gas tariff of 22.2 cents per kWh for his entire consumption in January and February 2023 – although the federal government capped the price for these two months retrospectively to 12 cents.
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Behind ExtraEnergie and the sister brands is an intricate company construct, with which profits in the hundreds of millions were transferred to the low-tax country of Cyprus for years via extraordinarily high license fees. The central figure is the businessman and multi-millionaire Mordechay Maurice Ben-Moshe. The companies and Ben-Moshe did not respond to repeated requests from the magazine.
Lemke does not feel responsible
The Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection under Steffi Lemke (Greens) does not consider itself responsible. One cannot “make any assessments of specific legal behavior,” said a spokesman on request. “Consumers who are affected by specific measures can contact the consumer advice centers for advice.” In general, the ministry has the clear expectation “that companies will comply with the applicable legal situation”.
The supervisory authority for the energy market apparently does not want to intervene either. “The Federal Network Agency continuously checks whether the suppliers are complying with the energy law obligations,” writes a spokeswoman for the authority. But she could “not become active in civil disputes”.
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