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State to crack down on ‘deceptive’ electricity seller: officials

Underhanded sales practices like signing up customers without telling them and preying on non-English speakers could bar a Florida electricity seller from doing business in New York, state officials said today.

Liberty Power Corp.’s door-to-door sales force promises to lower Con Ed electricity bills by claiming Liberty gets better deals from generating companies.

But Liberty’s salespeople have repeatedly lied to customers by misrepresenting themselves as Con Ed or city employees, the Public Service Commission said.

In one case, a Liberty saleswoman pretended to be a city employee investigating Con Ed overcharges, and asked a customer to sign a “consent form” that was really a contract.

Even though the man didn’t sign the form, Liberty took over his electric bill anyhow, the state says.

In another case cited by the commission, a Con Ed customer complained that even though she had never signed a contract, “all three accounts at her three-family home had been switched to Liberty Power without her consent.”

Public Service Commission probers say Liberty has also presented English-language contracts to non-English speaking customers without offering a translation, a violation of state rules.

Liberty’s “misleading” and “deceptive” sales practices have resulted in more than 200 complaints since 2011, the PSC says.

The commission demanded last year that the company change its ways — but it said today the complaints are still rolling in, and that Liberty’s oversight of its sales force is “inadequate.”

It gave Liberty one week to tell the commission why it shouldn’t be barred from seeking new customers, and two weeks to tell the commission why it should not be booted from New York entirely.

“We will not tolerate continuing violations of the marketing standards that we have established to ensure customers are treated fairly,” said PSC chairman Garry Brown.

In a statement, Liberty said it was “extremely troubled” by the order, and promised “immediate action.”

Liberty does business in 14 states, and had revenues of $655 million in 2011.

Its founder, David Hernandez, became interested in the energy business during two years he worked at Enron, a giant energy company that was wiped out in 2001 amid a massive accounting scandal.

Liberty and other energy service companies — commonly called ESCOs — say they offer customers lower rates on the energy portion of Con Ed electric bills, which cover the cost of generating power.

But there’s evidence the deals are often a ripoff. A study in National Grid’s upstate service territory found that customers who switched to ESCOs paid an extra $413 for their electricity over a two-year period.

Con Ed customers who don’t switch to an ESCO get power bought by the company without markup.

The PSC’s move against Liberty was praised by consumer advocates.

“It’s a good sign that they are doing something,” said Gerald Norlander of the Public Utility Law Project, which is working with AARP to make the system fairer for consumers.

Con Ed said it also supports the PSC action, since customers sometimes blame it for problems caused by Liberty and other power sellers.

bsanderson@nypost.com