Public Service Commissioner raises concerns about third party utility bill management companies at complexes near LSU

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A Louisiana Public Service Commissioner is raising the alarm about third-party utility bill management systems at some apartment complexes near LSU.

Some parents of LSU students are concerned that their children will not get an accurate utility bill after some apartment complexes are now using these third-party billing companies.

Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis states, there’s no way to regulate the companies.

“It’s a snowball effect of, I’m trying to prevent issues instead of waiting until the ball drops,” said Gail Adams, parent of an LSU student.

Adams recently came across some complaints on the LSU parents of students Facebook page.

“About outside companies billing them for utilities and all the problems they kept having, with either the bills being super high, or double billed, or getting a really outrageous bill after they moved out,” said Adams.

Gail’s son recently a message from officials at the apartment complex, which said they have partnered with Conservice, a third-party utility management company, to manage the utility program at the complex. Instead of those residents just directly receiving their bill from Entergy.

“So, I kind of was concerned, that here we go, we might end up with some problems,” said Adams.

Commissioner Lewis said there are a number of apartment complexes catered towards LSU students that are using the programs Conservice or Simple Bills.

“But what we’re hearing is a lot of these tenants aren’t receiving their actual bills, so they have no idea if they’re actually paying their actual amount of money. And it’s a deep concern to us at the commission,” said Lewis, Public Service Commissioner for district 3.

The letter from the complex also asks the residents to contact Entergy to request that services be removed from their name on the account, or else they will be charged.

“If you’re not getting your actual bill of your usage or your rate, how can you know that you’re not paying extraordinary fees that are not regulated by the commission? And that’s why we are working with the apartment association, and looking at other ways to ensure that students, tenants and parents, are protected, especially around LSU,” said Lewis.

A 2022 proposed class action alleges Conservice has violated California law by failing to allow renters to view the formulas it uses to calculate their pro rata share of master-metered utilities.

“But what we’ve seen in this instance, is that the utility company and Entergy wasn’t even aware of this happening, which offers a lot of concerns for me,” said Lewis.

“And now they’re having to switch to something different, will the bills match,” questioned Adams.

WAFB did reach out to Entergy officials, who were unaware this was happening.

WAFB also reached out to Conservice, the company in question here, to ease some of these parents’ concerns, but did not get a response back yet.

Below is the full statement from Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis:

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