HALO Talks Fast Break: Justin Rumack of David Energy on "Slamming."

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Hello. This is Dave Ganyelin, chief marketing officer of Integrity

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Square channeling PD Mo, Pete Moore, for

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today's Thursday fast break, in the official

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uniform of, Integrity Square sporting my EBITDA hat for

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those of you who are watching the the, listening to the podcast. We're here

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today with Justin Rumack, from David Energy. I'm gonna

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turn it over. We have some really interesting stuff to share today,

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real quick. I'm gonna turn it over to Justin to have him introduce himself and

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David Energy. Those of you may recall we've interviewed in the past

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James, the CEO. We did a webinar with him. It was great. We'll link to

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that in the show notes. Take it away, Justin.

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David, great to be here. Sorry. I don't have that beautiful hat. Everyone gets to

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look at my nice shiny head, in lieu.

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But, great to meet everyone. My name is Justin Rumack. I'm head of

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business development over at David Energy. We are a

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retail electricity provider here in the states of

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New York and serving multiple states as well, but we're here in New

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York. And, yeah, we'd love to, you know, speak

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and, and speak on what we're doing these days. Awesome. Yeah. That that

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webinar with James was great, but I I feel like we reconnected

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recently, and I you brought up this idea of,

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slamming, I believe it's called. And it's super important that

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people know this is happening. This is a real danger to

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the halo sector. Maybe you could speak on that and talk

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about how what this is, a, and b, how

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to, you know, have their staff not get slammed and what

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they could do to prevent this from happening. Absolutely. So

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let's talk about what this is, this word slamming. Right? It it sounds

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horrible. And and and, honestly, it is. You know, what it means and

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it's happening all over the place and particularly prevalent,

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in New York, the New York market, where someone will

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walk into your gym or your studio, and they will ask to see

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speak to a manager. And they will say, hey. I'm with Con

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Edison. I've gotta do a smart meter read. Can you please sign this so I

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can get access to your meter? And, that person will

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sign up, and you just got signed up for a three year

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supply contract at an egregious rate

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that will now live buried on your Con Ed bill

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for however long it takes for anyone to identify. And

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I will tell you that, you know, we work with hundreds and hundreds of facilities

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here in New York. And whenever I I do that first sort of

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review of the bills, if they've got multiple locations, I it

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ultimately, inevitably, I'm gonna find a bill where they've been slammed.

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And, you know, what does this mean, this slam in terms of dollars?

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I'll give you an example. I just looked at a portfolio last week,

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pulled up one of their accounts, saw that again, buried a line

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item on a bill that they are paying 30¢ a

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kilowatt hour with this supplier, when they

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should be paying 10¢. Okay? Paying 30¢. Should

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be paying 10¢. Their bills were

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$15,000 a month. I

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went back to the customer and I said, hey. Are you familiar with this

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supplier? And they said, I've never heard of them. I

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said, okay. You've you've you've been slammed. Congratulations.

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Let's let let let's do something about it here. You know, let's get you off

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this. So, you know, long story short, went down the path, helped them get out

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of it, and effectively overnight dropped

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their electric bill from $15,000 to

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$5,000. And That was just all

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facilities or one? That that was a large facility. Right? Where they

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where where where that was their electric bill for one facility. Right? So, obviously,

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depending on the size of the studio or facility and what their electric bills

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are, that's gonna drive what the dollar value is. But

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but ultimately, when you are getting slammed, typically, you're not

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getting a good rate in that slam. Right. You know, these these people know what

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they're doing. They know they can get away with it. And people often ask, well,

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how do they get away with it? And they get away with it

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because someone actually signed a contract. Yeah. And

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so until they get called out on it and it gets brought

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to their attention and flagged, that, it was it

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was an unauthorized signature who signed it. This is not a

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valid contract. They're gonna keep running with it, and that's why they get away with

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it. Right. Right. Now, I mean, it's technically

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legal, but it's crazy unethical. Is that fair to say?

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That's right. That's right. And, and and there's, you know, little tricks to the

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trade that we help in to help get you out of it quickly. Right? You

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know? And and and not painful. But, yeah, it's been happening for a while

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now, and, as long as they're getting signatures, they're getting away with

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it. So, now what can facilities do to to

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and what does David Energy do to help this not

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happen? Yeah. So, you know, the problem is

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is that, you know, if anyone's looked at an actual

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electricity bill lately and and I will say sidebar, you know, I was a

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business owner myself for twelve years in New York City back in the

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day. And I I don't think I looked at the fine details of an

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electric bill once in twelve years. Because, you know, everyone's

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operating their businesses. There's a lot of other things that you're prioritizing.

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You're thinking that electricity bills are non controllable costs. So, you

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know, I just wasn't really looking at it, but, it's there, and it's buried on

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the line items on a bill. But it's happening, and if you have a portfolio,

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there's a lot to to to assess and look at. So, you

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know, what we're doing is David Energy, as as an electricity

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provider, you know, we are providing a an ongoing free

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bill health check service where, you know, we're policing

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your bills, and we're making sure that you're not getting slammed. And

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we're putting in you know, we're implementing rules, so that it doesn't

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happen. And if it does, we help you get out of it right away so

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it you don't take on a month or two of these, you know,

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overspend, rates. So, you know, again,

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it's a service that's a it's a free service that we do provide to our

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customers as an add value, with us being your

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supplier. I do wanna point out to the to the to the ether that,

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David Energy is not a broker. You know, you may have

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had experiences in the past with brokers, and they've been calling you

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off the hook saying, hey. Work with us. Work with us. We are a direct

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supplier, so brokers actually come to us, to get rates.

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So, yeah, as an as an add value service, we

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are protecting you guys from these these slams. Right now, if you're

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doing nothing by default, Con Edison

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is your supplier. They're not policing your accounts.

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Right. As you guys can probably guess, you know, they're not taking a close look

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to make sure that you're on the right rate class, not getting slammed,

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etcetera. So, that's what we're doing these days, Dave. We're really providing a lot of,

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you know, value for for our brands. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's that's

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that's great. And I think that you made that distinction because I was gonna ask

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you about that. Like, there's a lot of business owners, myself, I

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you know, this was all new to me. There's that the supplier and

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the other what's the other term? The the supplier? They're brokers. They're entrepreneurs,

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consultants. Yeah. So, you know, it ConAd in in

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in New York could be both. Right? They could be the supplier and the

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well, not the broker, but right? Yeah. So so you're you're

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right. It does get very confusing and convoluted. So

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just an education piece here to everyone. Con Edison

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is the utility Right. Here in New York City. They're always gonna

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be the utility. You're we're not replacing Con Edison. Okay? So if

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you work with David Energy, we actually show up on the

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actual Con Edison bill as the supplier. By

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default, if you do nothing, Con Edison is your supplier.

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Gotcha. Gotcha. Yep. They don't generate the power. They're not they go out to market

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to purchase energy, just as David Energy does. Yeah.

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So, you know, with the why work with David Energy? It's because we're providing this

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this suite of additional ad value services where we're

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detecting slams, detecting, rate class errors.

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I'll tell you one another quick story. Uh-huh. We work with a large portfolio in

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New York City, where we identified that they were on the

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wrong rate class on their bill. And you hear the word

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rate class, and who knows what that means? You know, not many people. Right? They

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are supposed to be in the s c nine rate nine rate

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class instead of two. And we helped them recover

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a hundred and $20,000 because they were

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getting over billed for three years Woah. At their

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facilities. And, again, this is something that went completely

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undetected on the bill because, you know, the the AP person, they don't know what

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rate class is supposed they're supposed to be at. So, yeah. This is

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stuff you know, Con Edison makes mistakes. Right? So, you know, just having

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a a partner to to support you and keep an eye on your bills,

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to flag them when there's issues, easy way to identify, you know,

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to, you know, avoid a cost or or money saved initiative.

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Huge, huge value adds. And, the,

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the free service you offer, maybe you can talk about how how people can

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take advantage of that and, wrap up with your contact info, and

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we'll be good. Perfect. Yeah. No. I really appreciate the time, David. So

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yeah. Honestly, it's simple. You know, getting in touch with me, Justin Rumack, and

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David Energy, you know, it's as simple

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as we wanna take a look at your most recent bill, you know,

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across your portfolio, and we will do a free bill health check. We'll run

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it through our system. We'll do the analysis, and we'll come back to you with,

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like, hey. You have a great situation. There's nothing

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I could do for you right now on the supply side. You know, let's keep

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an eye on it. Let's revisit it in three or six months. Or, hey.

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At two of your locations, there's an issue here. Let's take a look

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here. You know, we can help you out, or, you know, you can run with

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it yourself. But we'll give you that free consultation, just to

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tell you what your current state is. And if it's something that you wanna continue

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engaging with us, you know, we're happy to see, you know, how else we can

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help you and what else we can do for you. Awesome. Alright. Well, you heard

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it here first, folks. So thanks, Justin. This is great stuff. We'll

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make sure to get it out there. Awesome. Thanks, David. You got it. Take

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care.