Your Energy Provider Can Change Without Your Permission — Here's How

What Slamming Actually Is

In deregulated energy markets, customers choose their own retail electricity or natural gas provider. That freedom also opens a door that a small number of bad actors exploit: switching a customer to a new provider without their authorization. The industry term is "slamming." Sometimes it happens through deceptive door-to-door or phone sales tactics — a signature captured under the wrong pretense, a verification recording spliced together — and sometimes it's outright fraud where a customer never spoke to anyone at all.

Why the Rules Exist

Every state that allows retail energy choice has rules against unauthorized switching. In Texas, the Public Utility Commission maintains a consumer protection division specifically for this, and other deregulated states — from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Illinois to the Northeast — have equivalent offices with real enforcement power. Providers caught slamming face fines, mandatory refunds, and in serious cases the loss of their certificate to sell energy in the state.

How to Handle It If It Happens to You

The first step is the fastest: if you see a provider on your bill you don't recognize, contact them and ask for proof of your authorization. Legitimate enrollments are documented — a recorded third-party verification call, a signed form, or a confirmed online sign-up. If they can't produce it, file a complaint with your state's utility commission. Don't accept "you'll have to wait out the contract." Unauthorized enrollments are void, and commissions can order the switch reversed and any charges refunded.

The Simpler Protection

The best defense against slamming isn't paranoia — it's using a transparent, verified comparison process from the start. When you can see every plan, every rate, and every contract term side by side before you enroll, there's no room for a mystery sign-up to slip through. That's the process 97 Options is built around.