______________________

John Pickernell

Assistant Board Secretary

Ontario Energy Board

416-440-7605

Fax: 416-440-7656

Website: www.oeb.gov.on.ca

Official Correspondence: BoardSec@oeb.gov.on.ca



Address:

P.O. Box 2319

2300 Yonge Street 27th Floor

Toronto, ON

M4P 1E4

______________________





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From: BOJAN BASARIC [mailto:bojanb@rogers.com]
Sent: April 6, 2010 3:20 PM
To: BoardSec
Subject: Re: Comments on application EB-2010-0034, renewal of the Electricity Retailer Licence to Universal Energy Corp



Good afternoon,



I have not received confirmation from you that my comments have been received and will be included in the renewal review process.



Please respond at your earliest convieneince.



Regards,



Bojan Basaric

--- On Wed, 3/31/10, BOJAN BASARIC <bojanb@rogers.com> wrote:


From: BOJAN BASARIC <bojanb@rogers.com>
Subject: Re: Comments on application EB-2010-0034, renewal of the Electricity Retailer Licence to Universal Energy Corp
To: Boardsec@oeb.gov.on.ca
Cc: kthurnau@rogers.com
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 12:08 AM

Dear Madam / Sir,



I encourage you to take a moment and investigate many testimonials from Ontarians on the Universal Energy business practices that are available in the public domain. You can find many by searching for "Universal Energy Scam" phrase on the Internet.



CBC made a documentary, showing hidden camera footage of the UE sales people exerting pressure and misrepresenting their way into signing up customers while clearly violating Ontario's Consumer Protection Act.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVmnHSLZMGg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axZtZLj33QI



Regards, Bojan

--- On Tue, 3/30/10, BOJAN BASARIC <bojanb@rogers.com> wrote:


From: BOJAN BASARIC <bojanb@rogers.com>
Subject: Comments on application EB-2010-0034, renewal of the Electricity Retailer Licence to Universal Energy Corp
To: Boardsec@oeb.gov.on.ca
Cc: kthurnau@rogers.com
Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 11:18 PM

Dear Madam/Sir,



My position is that OEB should not grant renewal of the Electricity Retailer Licence to Universal Energy Corp. due to their purposeful and systemic unfair and predatory practices, while enjoying extraordinary and unusual profit margins in no business risk environment.



My household have been with Universal Power a.k.a Universal Energy, a.k.a. Just Energy (UE in the rest of the document) on “electricity price protection plus” contract since February 22nd, 2006. My spouse, signed the contract at the time and has been dealing with review and payments of the electricity bill since.



I looked at my electricity bill for the first time after 4 years and discovered the following "features" of this unfortunate transaction:

- Marketing material and one-page signed contract contain direct and indirect representations of benefits of "fixed price" compared to scary fluctuations in the market price. Please see the attached scan of the original.

- The same document offers false comparison between the offered “fixed price” and OEB regulated rate, whereas the OEB regulated rate includes the “Provincial Benefit” and the offered “fixed price” does not.

- The actual meat of the contract is in the Terms and Conditions (T&C) booklet, printed in small typeface, using language inaccessible to average consumer. I should say that happy faces of a couple looking at their electricity bill and grinning Tie Domi grace the pages of this infamous document.

- In there we learn that UE can and will pass all costs of doing business to consumer to protect their profit.

- We also learn that UE can cancel the agreement in their sole discretion. Therefore, consumer might not be able to receive benefit from the “fixed price”, as customer is at material risk of UE exiting the agreement when the market price is higher then contracted “fixed price”.

- And if customer wants to cancel, UE will calculate "Early Cancellation Fee" equivalent to their view of the lost profit for the balance of the 5-year term.




The financial bottom line for my household is that we have been paying double the OEB regulated rate for 4 years, while UE retained extraordinary and unusual 220% profit margin between the market price and the “commodity fixed price”, while passing their cost of business to me, with no risk to UE as they can exit the agreement if and when profit they do not like their profits.





I have concluded that UE is in violation of the Consumer Protection Act, specifically by engaging in the following Unfair Practices.




It is an unfair practice for a person to make a false, misleading or deceptive representation. 2002, c. 30, Sched. A, s. 14 (1).



A representation that misrepresents the purpose of any charge or proposed charge.
A representation that misrepresents or exaggerates the benefits that are likely to flow to a consumer if the consumer helps a person obtain new or potential customers. 2002, c. 30, Sched. A, s. 14 (2).
A representation that a specific price advantage exists, if it does not.



It is an unfair practice to make an unconscionable representation. 2002, c. 30, Sched. A, s. 15 (1).



that the consumer transaction is excessively one-sided in favour of someone other than the consumer;
that the terms of the consumer transaction are so adverse to the consumer as to be inequitable;
that the consumer is unable to receive a substantial benefit from the subject-matter of the representation;





My position is based on the following factual findings.



Item 10 “Responsibility Under this Agreement”, Item 3 “Price” and Item 13 “Early Termination Charges” in the T&C brochure. Item 3 - fully protects UE’s full profit when market prices are below contracted fixed price by allowing UE to pass any charges set by IESO and other regulators to consumer. Item 13 - Even if customer decided to terminate the agreement early, UE will retain full profit for the 5-year term through early cancellation fee. On the other side, consumer’s ability to attain potential benefit of the offered “commodity fixed price” in case when the market price is above the “commodity fixed price” , is materially limited as UE can exit the agreement (Item 10) at such time at its sole discretion and turn over their customer to utility where higher market prices apply. Therefore, all of the above constitute consumer transaction that is excessively one-sided in favour of UE. Therefore, the terms of the consumer transaction are so adverse to the consumer as to be inequitable. Therefore, the consumer is unable to receive a substantial benefit from the subject-matter of the representation, in the only case when the subject-matter of the representation, is beneficial to customer – higher market price. Therefore, a representation that a specific price advantage exists is misrepresented as customer is at material risk of UE exiting the agreement when the market price is higher then contracted fixed price.
The “New Customer Program Summary” leaflet that was presented to my wife for signature implies comparison between “commodity fixed price” of 9.59 cents/kWh and then current OEB regulated rates of 5 cents/kWh for the first 750 kWh and 5.8 cents/kWh for the remainder. This is false and unfair comparison as the OEB regulated price contains the “Provincial Benefit” item and UE “offered fixed price” does not. Therefore, the nature of the “offered fixed price” charge is misrepresented as the equivalent to the OEB regulated price.
None of the documents presented by UE contain the “Provincial Benefit” charge although this charge existed at the time of contract as a line item on the UE part of the electricity bill. Therefore, the document on which customer based their purchasing decision misrepresents the benefit of the offered “fixed price” by hiding the fact that consumer will pay “Provincial Benefit” in top of the “fixed price”.
The “New Customer Program Summary” leaflet and “Residential Price Protection Plus Application” application form, in effect the signed contract, do not mention any charges that UE will pass to customer such as admin fees, balancing fees and others. The additional charges are itemized in the T&C brochure Item 3. The “New Customer Program Summary” leaflet and “Residential Price Protection Plus Application”, do not mention that UE retains the right to exit the agreement at its sole discretion, as defined in item 10 of the T&C brochure. In conclusion, “New Customer Program Summary” and “Residential Price Protection Plus Application” documents misrepresent benefits to customer by hiding risks and additional charges. Furthermore, UE retains the right to exit the agreement at its sole discretion, materially limiting customer’s potential benefit of attaining the offered “fixed price” in case when the market price is above the fixed price, as UE can exit the agreement at such time at its sole discretion. Therefore, your documents on which customer bases their decision during door-to-door sales process misrepresent the potential benefit that will flow to customer by setting expectation of a “fixed price” for the goods delivered. In reality, the price is not fixed and UE retains rights to add known and unknown items in the future to the fixed price and exit the contract w/o penalty if it feels that transaction is not advantageous to UE.
The “New Customer Program Summary” leaflet and “Residential Price Protection Plus Application” application form, fail to mention “Early Termination Charges” are substantial and equivalent to UE’s projected loss of profit due to the termination. Therefore, documents on which customer based their purchasing decision during door-to-door sales process misrepresent (hide) “Early Termination Charges”.





Thanks for your attention. I sincerely hope that you will give due review to my comments and hear complaints of thousands unhappy customer who have been taken advantage by the Universal Energy Corp. I hope that OEB has the strenght and integrity to say NO to this type of predatory and unfair business practices.



Kind Regards,



Bojan Basaric

Director, Oracle Corp. Canada

7 Lukow Terrace

Toronto, ON, M6R 3B7c. 416 508 4908



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