April, the beginning of the fiscal year, is when many people move to new homes when they start a new job or a school program. It is also when consumer centers nationwide see a rise in complaints over a variety of dubious new electricity and gas contracts ¡ª enabled by the liberalization of the utilities markets a decade ago.
Between April 2025 and February, the National Consumer Affairs Center received a total of 3,648 complaints over electricity contracts and 418 on gas contracts. This remains within the same range as the number of cases that have been reported in the past several years ¡ª 3,695 electricity contract issues and 437 with gas in the same time frame last year.
When the retail market for electricity was liberalized in April 2016, residents were able to pick and choose from the menu of services that they wished to have included in their electricity plan, instead of paying a fixed amount that had been pre-established by the local authorities in the area they live in.
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