ComplaintsforTiger Natural Gas, Inc.
Natural Gas Companies
Multi Location Business
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Complaint Details
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Initial Complaint
04/27/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Billing Issues
- Status:
- Answered
I live in a Mobile Home park,. ******* *******, **** ******* Ave, Fairfield CA *****. The gas and/or electric company changed to Tiger Direct, and or Tiger Natural Gas ************. We are now being charged extremely high rates. Mobile home community are small homes, single wide and double wides. Residents are being charged $700- $1500 a month in g as and electricity. The cost is beyond any general increase overall being experienced. This is a low income community and residents are probably being charged 10 x the correct amount. There have been repeated complaints. This new company is a fraud or scam. Management states Tiger Direct is not returning any calls. REsidents cannot call directly as it is a contract with Mobile home park. Corrections to proper charges and refunds of over payments are needed.Business response
05/10/2023
The customer will need to speak to the mobile park owner as they are the one who is responsible for making decisions on the gas. Tiger has offered to lock in the entire mobile park home rate however the owner did not sign off on that. Tiger did bill what we had to pay for gas for that month.Initial Complaint
03/23/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Customer Service Issues
- Status:
- Answered
Jan 30th to present: Overcharges of utilities. Refusal to transfer my service back to my local energy carrier (PG&E). I have repeatedly contacted them over the last 2 months to switch my plan back to PG&E. They keep telling me it will take 30 days but it has been almost 2 months. During the interim, they have been charging a Variable gas rate of $5.71/therm, while PG&E only charges $2.27/therm. It's quite obvious that they keep delaying the switch so that they can keep collecting the outrageous rates for as long as possible. I have spoken to several people there and they keep giving me the "runaround".Business response
04/24/2023
The customer called 1/30 to cancel and the account was processed through for a cancellation. PGE assigned the cancellation of 2/22/2023 and the account has not been with Tiger since.Initial Complaint
03/03/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Billing Issues
- Status:
- Answered
Tiger natural gas charged us 1.42 the month earlier then raised the price to 5.42 a therm with no notice. Our small business gas bill was almost $5000 doubling in price. I found another company that is charging .62 cents.Business response
04/24/2023
Tiger does not have an account by this address or name. We do not show the customer has been on service with us. I have emailed the customer to provide a bill showing our charges.Initial Complaint
02/13/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Billing Issues
- Status:
- Answered
gas rates way too high, can't afford 500+ dollars a month for gas. Please cancel my account and return me to ***** My PG&E acct no. is XXXXXXXXXX-X.Business response
03/08/2023
Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2023/02/22) */ The customers account was processed for a cancellation on 1/17/2023. *** does not stop service in the middle of a billing cycle and the account ended on 2/2/2023.Initial Complaint
02/03/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Customer Service Issues
- Status:
- Answered
I want my service to be disconnected . No one picks up the phone.I left messages. ****** *****Business response
03/01/2023
Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2023/02/13) */ Tiger received voicemail on 2/3/2023 and did cancel her account. Tiger did leave her a voicemail that the account had been dropped. The account will end on 2/28/2023.Initial Complaint
01/31/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Sales and Advertising Issues
- Status:
- Answered
Tiger gas pricing model is not transparent and they over charge for gas usage overages and under reimburse for gas usage deficit. We have used Tiger gas at our Laundromats for many years. When we first signed a contract we were told that their fixed (Bulk purchase) pricing would be cheaper than other local gas companies and would make it easier to balance our budgets by keeping prices fixed. Indeed for the first few years this seemed to be the case but as of the past several years this is not how they have priced our gas and we have made several complaints about prices that are close to putting us out of business. Tiger gas estimates how much gas you will use for the upcoming year. They are always wrong and in the winter time they estimate lower usage on a regular basis and charge 4 to 5 times more for the extra gas they need to purchase for us. Then in the summer they estimate higher usage and reimburse us at about 1/2 the price of what they charged us for the gas we didn't use. After going over my bills for the past 3 years of service this has been a regular way of doing business. Comparing what I have paid with overage charges to what I would have paid with New Mexico gas, I have been paying more on a monthly basis with Tiger gas. Now all of a sudden with no warning our gas prices doubled in December and now quadrupled in January putting our usual $1200 gas bill up to over $2,400 with estimates of over $4,000 for our January bill. Their explanation is that their purchase prices have gone up that much but when I look at other local gas suppliers who get their gas from the same San Juan Permian basin, their gas has only gone up by about 20%. In fact our $2,400 bill with Tiger would have been ~ $1,400 with New Mexico Gas and our January bill would estimate to be about $1,600. Tiger gas does not have any transparency with their pricing. You can not see what projected prices are and you can not see what past prices were. New Mexico gas posts their pricing online so there is no question. It might fluctuate a little with current prices but historical and future estimates have never jumped up more than 20%. Tiger's 400% price increases may be the end of one of our laundries.Business response
03/01/2023
Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2023/02/14) */ Tigers was transparent with the customer as our contract specifically states she is on a fixed rate for her historical gas usage. We go out and buy gas for her account ahead of time based on the historical gas usage. Any over burn or under burn will be priced at El Paso San Juan Absolute High/low. We also detailed out her historical usage which she can change before signing the contract. The usage on the contract is the previous 12 months usage that the customer used. As for the over/under burn we do not know this rate until the current month happens and NMGC lets us know if we need to buy additional gas for the customer. In December of 2021 the customer burned 119 Dths so for the contract we bought 119. For December of 2022 the customer burned 132 dth so Tiger did have to buy 13 Dths at the high market price. This price was extremely high due to the market trading that high so her bill was higher. I have attached the contract so you may see how transparent it is. The customer internal marketer at Tiger did explain this to the customer as well she let the customer out of her fixed price contract without any termination fees.Initial Complaint
01/24/2023
- Complaint Type:
- Billing Issues
- Status:
- Answered
In 2013 a company called my father in-law and promised better rates if he switched to tiger from PG&E (my father in-law was elderly). Checking rates with PG&E, tiger has been consistently higher then what could've been provided by PG&E. Tiger fails to clearly explain to its potential customers that PG&E will still charge for the distribution of the gas that is provided by Tiger. This leads to not only higher charges per therm vs the original provider but a more expensive bill passed into the customer because PG&E still has to distribute the gas. When contacting Tiger Gas Inc they are very short and rude and unwilling to provide the gas billing amounts to their customer directly, provide certain company info, and refer the customer to request pricing info from PG&E. When Asked to produce the name of the 3rd party telemarketing form used for the calls or the transcript (wording used) to sale my father in-law tiger services, they stated due to privacy they will not provide that info (a sign of possible shady business practices). Contacted the CPUC for advise and utilized their advise to cancel the account. However, when cancelling the service, Tiger failed to provide a confirmation number on that call (this could lead to tiger holding the account open until the customer learns of it at a later point since tiger does not record their calls apparently). Called the CPUC a second time to inform them that tiger stated the account would close in 1 to 2 billing cycles and they said that completing the billing cycle is all it should take. Was directed to call tiger back and request a confirmation number to ensure the process was started. Looking into the history of Tiger it is easy to find info on legal suits they've had over similar things like, not informing a customer the calls were being recorded resulting in a $3.7 mil settlement. This company in my opinion seems to play on the more misleading business Practices much like other 3rd party suppliers of utilities.Business response
03/01/2023
Business Response /* (1000, 8, 2023/02/06) */ Tigers customer service department spoke with the customer for over an hour on the phone providing details of the account. The customer was unhappy due to not being able to provide certain information due to privacy. Customer Service explained the rate and the father says he remembered signing up but did not remember the price. As the manager of customer service i gave the customer a call back. I was on the phone with the customer for 45 minutes and at that point he was asking the same questions with the same answers so we ended the call. I explained it was signed up over 10 years ago and was not signed up on a fixed rate. After 36 months the account does roll to a variable rate plan. The customer is requesting our outside consultant information however they are able to sell Tigers service so any issues Tiger will handle and we do not give out their information due to the privacy in our agreement with them. Tiger has not worked with this consultant in over 5 years either. The pricing was due to the market as that is what it settled at. PGE is raising their rates as well to account for this. Tiger has gone above and beyond to answer the questions and offer assistance to the customer.
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Customer Complaints Summary
10 total complaints in the last 3 years.
1 complaints closed in the last 12 months.