Consumer watchdog · Fine print, quoted
Gimmick Watch: we read the fine print so you don't have to.
Free days. Free nights. $50 checks. Bill credits that vanish at 999 kWh. When a Texas electricity offer lands in your mailbox, we take it apart line by line — the provider's own words, the math they leave out, and what the same money buys instead.
Compare plans without the gamesIndependent. Providers pay us the same flat fee, so no plan can buy a kinder read.
Case files
Offers we've taken apart.
Every case quotes the offer's own printed terms, shows the arithmetic, and names who — if anyone — the plan genuinely fits.
TXU Energy Free daysDirect-mail offerPrepaid-card bonus TXU Energy Free Pass 12: The $50 check that isn’t a check, and the free days you pay for in advance.
A mailer with a $50 "check" stapled to it promises your 7 highest-usage days free every month. The check is a specimen, the bonus is a phone-only prepaid card, and the one number the mailer never prints — the rate you pay on the other 23 days — is the whole trick.
Read the case file
Reliant Free daysBill credit Reliant Flextra Credits 12: Two free days a week, priced into the other five.
Reliant’s front-page plan advertises your 2 highest-use days a week free, plus $200 in bill credits. Its own EFL shows how: a 21.5456¢ energy charge — about 27.6¢ all-in on every day that isn’t free. The free days aren’t a gift. They’re the markup, partially returned.
Read the case file
Just Energy Bill credit Just Energy Smart Choice 12 (also sold as Amigo Power Perks & Tara Value Choice): One spreadsheet, three costumes: the same 23.8¢ trap under three brand names.
Just Energy, Amigo Energy, and Tara Energy list the identical bill-credit plan under three names: 23.8¢ at 500 kWh, 10.9¢ at 1,000, 17¢ at 2,000, $175 cancellation fee. The credit's flat $125 shrinks per-kWh as usage grows, so this one punishes big homes too.
Read the case file
Express Energy Bill credit Express Energy Flash Value 12: Engineered to win one sort button on the state's own shopping site.
Sort Power to Choose by price at 1,000 kWh and Flash Value 12 lands fourth of 167, within half a cent of the top — at 7.2¢. The same EFL prices 500 kWh at 20.2¢ — a $125 credit at the 1,000-kWh line is the entire difference. The plan exists to win the default sort, not to be cheap at your house.
Read the case file TXU Energy Bill credit TXU Energy Smart 2000 Select 12: A $100 credit parked at double a normal home's usage — the cliff is in the name.
Advertised at 10.9¢ — at 2,000 kWh, a threshold TXU's own shop page says the average home doesn't reach. At 1,000 kWh the EFL price is 17.2¢. Its sibling Smart 1000 Select runs the same trick one notch down: 22.9¢ at 500, 10.9¢ at exactly 1,000.
Read the case file TXU Energy Free nightsPrepaid-card bonus TXU Energy Free Nights & Cool Summer 12: Free nights — unless you own the one thing that makes free nights worth anything.
Every night free, all year. The EFL average still lands near 18.9¢ at 1,000 kWh — it assumes 41% of your usage already happens at night — and the fine print bars the customers best equipped to exploit it: homes with EVs, batteries, or solar panels.
Read the case file
Gexa Energy Bill credit Gexa Energy Simply Low 12: Up to $1,500 a year in credits — a refund of a rate inflated to need refunding.
Gexa frames its usage credits as income. The EFL frames it differently: 21.6¢ at 500 kWh, 8.7¢ at 1,000, 14.8¢ at 2,000 — a $125 credit at the 1,000-kWh threshold doing all the work, dressed up as money you “earn.”
Read the case file TXU Energy Seasonal discountPrepaid-card bonus TXU Energy Ultimate Season Pass 12: 50% off a rate that was marked up first — and four months get no discount at all.
The pitch is half-price power in the brutal months. The EFL: the discount touches only the energy charge, only some months — 50% in Jan/Feb/Jul/Aug, 25% in four more, zero in Apr/May/Oct/Nov — and never the delivery charges. The blended average lands near 18.6¢ at 1,000 kWh.
Read the case file
4Change Energy Bill credit 4Change Energy Maxx Saver Value 12: The 7.3¢ rate that only exists at exactly 1,000 kWh.
Their "most popular plan" advertises 7.3¢ per kWh. The EFL: 20.2¢ at 500 kWh, 13.4¢ at 2,000 — because a $125 bill credit lands only when a billing cycle passes 999 kWh. Use 950 in a mild month and the headline rate nearly triples.
Read the case fileKnow the playbook
Six tricks, one purpose: keep you from comparing.
Every gimmick we've cataloged is a variation on these six. Learn the tells and the mailers start reading very differently.
Free nights & free days
A chunk of your usage is free — and the rate on everything else is set high enough to pay for it. The "free" isn't a gift; it's a prepayment built into the paid hours.
The tell: The ad names what's free. It never names the rate you pay the rest of the time.
The true cost of free-nights plans →Bill credits
A $50–$100 credit lands only if you hit a usage threshold — usually exactly 1,000 or 2,000 kWh. Hit it and the plan looks cheap. Miss it by one kilowatt-hour and the credit vanishes from that month's bill.
The tell: The advertised rate is startlingly low at exactly one usage level and much worse at the other two on the EFL.
Why usage level changes everything →The check in the mail
A $50 "check" shows up stapled to an offer letter. Look closer: it's printed SPECIMEN — NON-NEGOTIABLE. The real bonus is a prepaid card you get weeks later, only if you enroll, redeem in time, and stay on the plan.
The tell: The word "specimen," a redemption deadline, and a bonus that requires calling a phone number.
Advertised at 2,000 kWh
Texas EFLs must show average prices at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. Fixed monthly charges spread thinner at high usage, so the 2,000 kWh number is almost always the prettiest — and that's the one that goes in the ad.
The tell: A tiny "at 2,000 kWh" next to the big rate. Most Texas homes use closer to 1,000.
How much homes really use →Teaser first month
A low intro rate for the first month or two, then the "market" rate takes over — and on a variable plan, the market rate is whatever they say it is.
The tell: The word "variable," or a fixed rate with an unusually short term.
Fixed vs. variable, explained →The mail-only plan
Some heavily-marketed plans never appear on Power to Choose or even the provider's own website. No public listing means no EFL to read before you call — and no way to comparison-shop the offer in your hand.
The tell: You can't find the plan name anywhere except the mailer.
How to read an EFL →Got a mailer that smells funny?
Photograph both sides — the fine print is always on the back — and send it our way. If there's a trick in it, we'll take it apart in public.
Send us your mailerThe anti-gimmick move: compare at your usage.
Every trick on this page works by hiding what a plan costs at your home's real usage. So that's the number we rank by — TDU charges and base fees included, bill-credit plans flagged.
See today's plans at my usage