COVID Makes it Clear: Predatory Utility Sales in Low-Income Neighborhoods Must Stop

Mass. Dept. of Public Utilities Chair, Matthew Nelson

Right now, despite the COVID spike, energy supply companies are sending salespeople door-to-door in Massachusetts. They target low-income and majority-minority neighborhoods, bullying and deceiving residents to switch to other suppliers, which usually end up costing more.

These tactics are discriminatory and illegal. And allowing this during a pandemic is just absurd, especially since Black, Brown and other people of color are being sickened and killed at disproportionately high rates.

The Mass. Department of Public Utilities should immediately reinstate the ban on door-to-door energy-supplier sales.


To: Mass. Dept. of Public Utilities Chair, Matthew Nelson
From: [Your Name]

I stand with Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE) to call upon the Department of Public Utilities to re-suspend door-to-door marketing by competitive suppliers in the electricity market, in communities designated as “Red” by the Department of Public Health due to high COVID-19 infection rates.

These communities – disproportionately low-income, immigrant, and communities of color – have long been targeted by unscrupulous private energy suppliers and are now hardest hit by the ongoing public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such sales tactics were already discriminatory and illegal, and allowing them to continue during this pandemic is absurd.

DPU should use all of the tools within its power to stop unsafe, predatory door-to-door marketing in these communities during the current public health crisis.