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If You Have a Question or Concern About an Energy Contract or Company


  1. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) wants to hear from you.
    If you have questions or concerns about a licensed electricity retailer / natural gas marketer or their sales agent, please let us know. We regulate Ontario’s energy sector, and part of our role is ensuring that companies follow all applicable laws, regulations and regulatory requirements that we have authority to enforce.

  2. What the OEB does.
    As part of our role, we:
    • Provide information to consumers on the energy sector and consumer issues.
    • Work with electricity retailers / natural gas marketers to ensure they understand and comply with their legal and regulatory obligations.
    • Facilitate interaction between electricity retailers / natural gas marketers and consumers who have complaints, by bringing the complaint to the attention of the company involved and helping to resolve complex or difficult matters.
    • Track trends in the marketplace to identify consumer issues and determine how best to address them.
    • Investigate allegations that an electricity retailer / natural gas marketer is not meeting its legal or regulatory obligations.

  3. What the OEB does not do.
    The OEB has been given authority to deal with specific consumer issues, but is sometimes asked by consumers to deal with other issues. The OEB does not, for example:
    • Regulate prices offered by electricity retailers / natural gas marketers.
    • Force a company to resolve a consumer complaint where there has been no violation of any legal or regulatory requirement.
    • Regulate water heater rentals or heating protection plans.

    Even then, we still want to hear about a concern you may have because it helps us to analyze trends and potential issues in the sector.

  4. What if I have a concern with an electricity retailer / natural gas marketer?
    • The first step is to try to resolve your issue directly with the company involved.
    • If you are unable to resolve the issue, or wish to log a concern, you can contact the OEB.
      • Complaints are logged and forwarded to the electricity retailer / natural gas marketer.
      • We expect the company to respond to you and to inform the OEB of the response.
      • If you are dissatisfied with the response, you can raise your further concerns with the OEB.
      • However, if all legal and regulatory obligations have been met by the company, the OEB may decide that no further steps are required.
      • If it appears that the company may not have met a legal or regulatory obligation, the OEB’s compliance process may apply. Where it has been determined that the company has not complied with a legal or regulatory obligation, the company is expected to take corrective measures.
    • Visit our website at www.oeb.gov.on.ca and click on “For Consumers” to learn more about your rights and responsibilities as an energy consumer, as well as the obligations that electricity retailers / natural gas marketers have to consumers.

Still have questions?

Contact the Ontario Energy Board. We license all electricity retailers as well as marketers that sell natural gas to residential and small business consumers.

 

Toll free: 1-877-632-2727, Toronto local: (416) 314-2455
E-mail: info@oeb.gov.on.ca
Ontario Energy Board, P.O. Box 2319
2300 Yonge Street, Suite 2701 Toronto ON M4P 1E4
www.oeb.gov.on.ca