FORT PIERCE, Fla. — After Contact 5 aired a story containing allegations against a Fort Pierce electric company, more customers came forward to Contact 5 with similar complaints.
"No generator ever appeared and we've had a very difficult time communicating with the company," Annette Speach told Contact 5 a few weeks ago.
She and her husband have documentation from the company showing they spent more than $10,000 on a generator in January.
After the Speach's story appeared on WPTV on Nov. 2, Gary and Margaret Cabral called Contact 5.
"I felt bad for that other couple because, 'Oh my God, somebody else is in the same boat as us,'" Margaret Cabral said.
The Cabrals showed Contact 5 the contract they signed in February. They, like the Speaches, also paid Energized Electric thousands of dollars, according to receipts and statements from the company that they showed Contact 5.
"I pulled up Energized Electric to see if there was any new news and then your story came up online and we watched the whole thing," Gary Cabral said.
Like the Speachs, the Cabrals claim they haven't heard from Energized Electric in weeks and, to make matters worse, they lost power last week during Hurricane Nicole.
"It gets hot pretty quickly and you can't go sit outside in the middle of a storm, so you're like, 'This is not really pleasant,'" Margaret Cabral said.
Contact 5 tried calling the company several times over the past few weeks and no one answered the phone. Contact 5 also stopped by the store in Fort Pierce three separate times. The door was locked and no one came to the door when we knocked.
Both the Speachs and the Cabrals filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and they received the same response from the company, blaming COVID-19 price increases, a last-minute back out by an investor and shipping delays for the hold up.
However, both customers told Contact 5 they're not accepting that response because in both cases, it's almost been a year since they signed their contracts and paid the company.
"If I was the owner, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night," Gary Cabral said.