Champion Energy said thousands of customers were impacted by a payment problem connected to a software issue.
For Daniel Martinez of Spring, it was an unwelcome surprise.
“I woke up yesterday morning and I noticed that my bank account was overdrawn,” Martinez said.
A few days after paying $152.20 towards his electric bill, he said Champion Energy deducted the payment from his checking account not once but twice this week.
“I am not a rich man,” Martinez said. “I don’t have hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars in my account so if I pay my electric bill, I only expect it to be charged once.”
Martinez said he’s currently unemployed so the $34 overdraft fee didn’t help matters.
“I never overdraw my account,” he said. “I watch my money.”
In a statement to KPRC 2, Champion Energy said a software transition issue caused payments to be processed more than once for roughly 8,800 customers.
The company said it’s notified the people who were impacted, reversed the charges and fixed the problem.
“We will be giving all impacted customers a $30 credit on their next invoice for their inconvenience. We pride ourselves on our customer service and we sincerely apologize for this situation,” the statement said.
Martinez said his account has a third transaction from Champion that’s currently pending. He’s waiting to see if that’s a credit or another charge.
Champion said the majority of the customers impacted were on auto-pay but not everyone.
“We are committed to working hard to prevent anything like this from happening in the future,” the company’s statement said.