Xcel Energy

Zero stars. I am extremely frustrated with Xcel Energy. I own a small apartment building in Denver and I’ve just finished upgrading the electrical service to the building. I now need Xcel to come out and complete the process. They’ve put me off for weeks and when they finally arrive last week they had the wrong tools. Now I can’t get them to come out — won’t return calls and won’t schedule the installation. Horrible customer service.

I have been a Homesmart customer for many years for appliance repairs at home device in Colorado. I called for service only 4 – 5 times in past 7 years. Their customer service getting worse every time I need them for repair, also call hold time to reach a rep for repair request is exceeding 30 minutes
I’m starting to look elsewhere for home repair plan, you should too!

Normally I don’t have an issue with these people but when I called them to transfer service they asked me to confirm my email address. I thought this was to simply further ID me and to make sure I still receive my statements. Oh no… those a**holes over there sold or gave away my email to third parties and within hours I was being barraged with spam emails ranging from free vacations, British lotteries, penis enlargers, Russian brides, you name it. I’m not joking, those emails were coming in as fast as I was deleting them. Thank you very much, Xcel-f*cking-Energy.

Was able to set up as a new customer fast and easy. Picked a date to start my service. Called to change the date since the seller delayed my escrow. No problem. Set up auto pay and budget billing in one call. Lights are on and we’re cooking. I also get emails indicating energy savings.
Having moved from California with the highest electric rates in the nation I can say Xcel is affordable.

Using Connectsmart they signed me up for CenturyLink which I didn’t order and tried to sell me on ADT with a super hard sell. I was just trying to move to a new address, they took this as an opportunity to hard sell me on stuff I didn’t want or need and then signed me up for something I didn’t order. Awful.

Similar to other complaints below… The billing system is a janky scammy POS (both meanings of the word).
They refuse to help you if there are any issues with your auto pay and blame it on «government mandates» that they shut down you account if you have a failed transaction.
Their authentication methods are outdated and they send secure info through email. This is an extremely disappointing customer service experience, security experience and an impossibly bad payment experience. Xcel needs to step their game up, listen to their customers and pay some real cash to get a decent website and payment experience.

Very low brow move to connect you with a third party that tries to make you think they are xcel energy when setting up service. I feel like an old man that they are trying to scam. They even confused me a bit after I set up service and they said they needed to connect me to Connect Smart to «verify» my address. I am usually saavy enough to know when someone is trying to sell me on something I don’t need, but I was caught off guard for a few seconds until I realized that they did this to me last time I set up service. Why do all the major coporations like Xcel, Comcast, Direct TV, etc continue to practice such unsavory fleecing of their customers?

It would have been nice to know that when you sign up for auto pay, you are expected to manually pay at least one additional bill cycle.
That doesn’t make any sense if the billing system is able to accept same day payments online.
Oh, technology!

I was so happy to NOT be an Xcel customer for years, but unfortunately I’ve had to return. Let me start with their website which is absolutely the worst on the Internet. I can’t believe that a major corporation has a billing and information site that looks like it was developed by a 9 year old. The site has zero intuitive aspect. I can never find the information I need. Thankfully, their customer service group is fairly responsive.
That being said, my online bill does not provide enough detail such that I understand what I am being billed for. A one liner isn’t enough. Oh, and I have a solar system and nobody from the company told me how to link them. Xcel is just like the government. Unless you happen to find an employee that is dedicated and competent, you’re out of luck. This mentality apparently goes all the way to the board room.

My husband and recently I bought a house in Pueblo. We called to have the gas service turned on Wednesday morning. The girl assured us a technician would be out that afternoon. Nobody came.
I called on Thursday. The man assured us that our order was ‘on a truck’ and a technician would be out that day FOR SURE. He told me multiple times he ‘sees it in [his] computer’ and gave me information based on what he saw. It turns out he was LITERALLY MAKING THINGS UP while speaking to me. I asked how late the technician might come. The man told me 3:30pm and that the technician was going to be there soon. I told him the time was already past as it was already 4:00pm. The man apologized and told us the technician would be out on Friday FOR SURE.
I called Friday morning to confirm that a technician was coming out. The girl I spoke with assured me that the order was ‘on a truck’ (again) and somebody would be out that day. She had no way to connect me with this mystery technician to confirm that I needed to spend another full business day sitting here waiting for the gas company guy to show up. Nobody came. Again.
Today is Monday. We have been cold for 5 days now as night time temps have been in the 20’s here. I called (again) and was assured (again) that a technician would be out today. The technician finally called at 11:30am! He then asked us if ‘the water had been turned on yet’. It had not. He told us he could not possibly turn on our gas service until the water was connected per company policy. NOBODY ASKED US ABOUT THIS OR TOLD US ABOUT THIS!!! If this was actually company policy, why hadn’t anyone addressed this question to us?
I called the customer service line again after I got off the phone with the technician and scheduled the water to be turned on. The girl said she’d never even heard about that rule. She then rescheduled our appointment to… today. When, today? Sometime today. How late do I need to wait at home for the technician? She had NO WAY OF KNOWING.
Wow. Way to drop the ball Xcel Energy — we’ve had AWFUL service from your company and we don’t even have our service connected yet! Obviously nothing is written in stone, but I don’t see good things coming in the future from dealing with this company.
Everyone I’ve spoken to at Xcel Energy has been a nice, kind human being. That being said, it’s OBVIOUS that this company’s communication skills are DEPLORABLE. I know that sometimes things don’t go so well when working with large companies, but having agents A) making things up, B) literally know nothing about the service requirements, C) who can’t tell me when to expect a technician to arrive or even what hours they work, and D) lack the ability to communicate with local technician crews is RIDICULOUS.
This company gets an ‘A’ for having nice, friendly staff and an ‘F’ for their customer service quality.

These are the worst people and they are crooked. Never get their service. They charge even when your bill is turned off. They give money to lobbyists and pay more attention to legislators than to their customers.

If they were not the only energy company available, I would never pay for their services. Despite paying our power bill on time every month, we have had our power turned off twice in the last two months because they cannot manage to keep track of their own assets.

I hate Xcel and wish there was a way to avoid having them as my energy company, short of moving into a cave. In fact, the more and more I deal with them, living in a cave starts to sound more and more appealing.
In August, my roommates and I moved into our house. Our energy bill has ranged from $ 40~70 each month… until this past month, when we received a bill for 300 dollars. Yes, it’s been colder; yes, we were expecting a higher bill. But we were expecting «higher» to be something more like 30 dollars extra, not a 230 dollar increase. I was obviously not comfortable with giving them so much money without an explanation, so I called them up.
As it would turn out, our meter has been broken for 5 months and Xcel has been estimating our bill this entire time. ESTIMATING IT and now that there is a new meter, WE are the ones responsible for their mistake. YOU’VE BEEN AWARE THIS ENTIRE TIME THAT THE METER ISN’T READING ACCURATELY, AND IT TOOK YOU 5 MONTHS TO FIX IT? AND THEN CHARGED US FOR THE DIFFERENCE?
According to Mr. Xcel Call Center Man, the old meter was READING correctly but it was not TRANSMITTING (who knows if that’s even true, not like we could prove otherwise). All the meters apparently have some sort of radio transmitter, «So they can get the readings while driving down the block, and don’t have to go into people’s yards». So instead of getting off their fat asses and out of their cars to actually LOOK AT THE METER, they decided to (inaccurately) ESTIMATE instead. He also said that they placed a service order on October 6^th for a new meter but it was not completed until November 25^th. So for nearly two months after placing the service order, they continued to sit on their ass and estimate instead of walking the goddamn 25 ft from the road over to our meter.
I’ve called several times about this and all they do is offer a payment plan. I don’t NEED a payment plan; I NEED you to take accountability for your mistake.
Xcel… Because you have no choice but to bend over and take it.
PS. This video is a parody of Comcast, but it makes me think of every gigantic monopolistic corporation out there. If you’ve ever spent time on the phone with either I’m sure you’ll understand… For your viewing pleasure:

Worst customer service of my life!!! After they double charged my debit card, this lady had the gall to call me and say I was behind! When I called back to say I had proof from my bank, She HUNG up on me!!! No lost connection! She blatantly hung up on me! This is after when I first got the service, they said our electric would be on right away & the next night it finally got turned on!!! If it weren’t the only fact that I had to deal with them, I’d leave!

These guys tore up my road and yard adding gas services. They marked all the gas lines and I guess I misread them, and put a hole in the gas line when landscaping. Woops. A monster truck came with 4 guys, one of them smoking cigarettes through the whole process. They dug 1.5 feet down, crimped it, fixed it, and buried it. Took them 15 minutes. I got charged for 2 hours — $ 750.00 — seems excessive. I wanted to fight the price, but to do that they said they will send me to collections. Anybody have any suggestions on how to negotiate this down?

I must say, this company is absolutely horrible. They should no longer be in business. Living in CO last year, in one year alone I probably had over 60 outages occur. My brand new TV started having issues, along with my macbook air laptop which was only about a year old, so it def should have not been having issues. All my electrical appliances started going out, my electricity bills started going up because half the time the outages occurred I was at work, so when they power was turned back on, I would come home to the TV and all the lights on. They were probably on for hours at a time. I filed a claim with this company and they paid half the bill for my TV to be fixed, they also reimbursed me for my toaster, microwave and internet modems I had to buy after these outages occurred.
This company totally ruined all my brand new electrical appliances, and I’m sure they did because everything was brand new when I moved to CO and three months down the line when all the outages are occurring, everything starts blowing out, not turning on. The situation just did not make sense. I think this company should have paid for all my electrical items in full, especially because I had the receipts clearly showing they had all just been bought, it is just too much of a coincidence for everything to go out in two months time.
I told them I wanted to file a class act lawsuit so everyone they have screwed over could join in and instead of just paying for my problems then they can pay out millions for all the problems they have caused for everyone else as well. I would try and stay away if possible. I would def file a claim if any of your appliances start going out randomly. They should have to pay for their electrical issues, not their customers or already pay a monthly bill to have service. If anyone needs a letter of complaint to go along with their issues, I’m here!!! I went through the same and no one should have to deal with this. I’m glad I moved to SoCal, totally different company and have not had one outage since the move.

The worst thing in the world. they dont have costumer service in weekend… I had to wait until monday to restore my service back even though I have paid the amount due! it was a nightmare weekend. My apartment was as hell in summer. I had to go to my car to charge my phone and I bought some flashlights. I felt like I am in the 14^th century.
The costumer services told me «we will restore it on monday and have a good weekend» How would I have a great weekend with no electricity you jerk?
It is ridiculous! They even deserve one star.

Xcel came by and replaced some part of the electric pole in our backyard and chopped a lot of branches off our trees. No big deal, they aren’t arborists but it was okay. That was April 10^th. They have never been back to pick it up. We have called maybe 20 times. Their story changes every time.
Absolutely the worst customer service I have ever had. And there is nothing we can do. Maybe we should pile it in the street with a sign saying «Xcel please pick up your brush»

NO customer service on weekends??? Are you serious?!?
One star all the way, not only do you bend me over and take my money monthly, there is NOBODY to talk to should I have something that needs addressing over the weekend.
Xcel, you’re a necessary evil.

Wouldn’t ya know it. .. another month. .. and another bill from Xcel.
And what a surprise. .. they still have the worst website on the internet: Ya can’t see the whole page at 1 time. Ya can’t navigate easily between the pages. And ya can’t easily make payments online (unless ya wanna pay a large amount of $$$ to do so).
Accordingly, this month’s Stupid Website Award again goes to Xcel Energy, your monopoly provider who doesn’t care squat about your wasting your time when you pay your bill, just so they can make more money.
Sign me,
David «Your bitter customer,» M.