LaBelle forwards this link from Slacktivist:
Reuters reports that TXU Energy, the biggest utility in Texas, intends to increase its rates -- but only for those least able to pay:
In a new rate-setting tactic for electric utilities, the unit of Dallas-based TXU Corp. plans bigger rate increases for customers with low "credit scores," which are numeric rankings that take into account customer histories of paying electricity, phone and cable bills, the Wall Street Journal reported.
I'm not sure whether this is more evil or stupid, but it's a whole lot of both.
Your "credit score" can be lowered for many reasons -- some legitimate, some arbitrary, many which you are helpless to change regardless of how responsible you may be. One variable which inevitably results in a lower credit score is a lower income.
That's hardship enough for lower-income families when a credit score is only being used for its intended purpose -- deciding whether or not to extend credit. But as credit scores begin to be used for purposes like this it is simple cruelty. This is simply a way to take advantage of the poor and powerless because they are poor and powerless and you can take from them whatever you like.
...And what happens when this portion of these low-income families' monthly budget increases? That's right -- their credit scores will go down. This is obscene. A clumsy measure of wealth is being used as though it were a precise measure of virtue and responsibility.
In a new rate-setting tactic for electric utilities, the unit of Dallas-based TXU Corp. plans bigger rate increases for customers with low "credit scores," which are numeric rankings that take into account customer histories of paying electricity, phone and cable bills, the Wall Street Journal reported.
I'm not sure whether this is more evil or stupid, but it's a whole lot of both.
Your "credit score" can be lowered for many reasons -- some legitimate, some arbitrary, many which you are helpless to change regardless of how responsible you may be. One variable which inevitably results in a lower credit score is a lower income.
That's hardship enough for lower-income families when a credit score is only being used for its intended purpose -- deciding whether or not to extend credit. But as credit scores begin to be used for purposes like this it is simple cruelty. This is simply a way to take advantage of the poor and powerless because they are poor and powerless and you can take from them whatever you like.
...And what happens when this portion of these low-income families' monthly budget increases? That's right -- their credit scores will go down. This is obscene. A clumsy measure of wealth is being used as though it were a precise measure of virtue and responsibility.
I can't believe it's legal.
What am I saying? This is America. And I'm just sick about it. We have grown so ugly.
Zen Tarot: The Miser
Update: I just read the readers' comments (good stuff), and found this:
Q: So if Granma can't pay the bill and maybe has a low credit score due to lack of activity ie. house & car are paid in full, she doesn't believe in credit cards or doesn't shop til her credit card burns up...she's gonna get charged more? How do these people sleep at night and isn't there or shouldn't there be a law against this?
A: The fun background on this is that Texas is purposefully the only state whose electric grid is not tied into any other state's. That means that FERC can't touch them. In the rest of the country, utilities can't set rates according to impermissible characteristics like this, but Texas can do whatever it wants.
A: The fun background on this is that Texas is purposefully the only state whose electric grid is not tied into any other state's. That means that FERC can't touch them. In the rest of the country, utilities can't set rates according to impermissible characteristics like this, but Texas can do whatever it wants.
I'm going to have to rethink that move to Galveston.
....but you do what you want....you will anyway.
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