Talk:Amigo Energy

message: Should this company page include details on the separation of a former CEO and the subsequent employment court battle?  Commo soldier (talk) 05:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Threaded Discussion 

message: I have to call into question the source used for describing Javier Vega's termination and subsequent lawsuit. In short, it's a press release from the law firm that represented Vega at trial, which automatically presents a WP:COI problem. If another source can't be found that discusses the situation regarding Amigo Energy and Vega's separation, without bringing the obvious bias into the matter, any discussion of Vega's separation -- I use that word specifically to maintain neutrality -- should be restricted to an article on Vega himself, and kept out of the company's article. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln)  (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The good: it verifies the information. The bad: even though it comes from what most would call a reliable source (the Fort Worth Star-Telegram), the article is an op-ed piece, which is going to leave the door open to other challenges regarding non-neutrality. I read the referenced article before I came back here, and I don't see any inherent bias in its content; Lieber matter-of-factly states the result of the trial and the jury award, using it as a support for his own argument instead of arguing for (or against) Vega. I'd still like to see another source regarding Vega's termination, though. Of course, if another source CAN be found, it might argue for Vega getting a stand-alone article, which would remove the "Controversy" section completely from this article and replace it with a "see also". --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln)  (talk) 17:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

text: Oddly enough, I'm going to play both sides of the fence here by stating although Lieber is citing the court case for his own ends, the results of that case are NOT in question, nor is Vega's employment status (or lack thereof) with Amigo Energy. I don't know enough about him or his activities to be able to judge whether he warrants his own article under WP:GNG. My original concern was what I saw as WP:UNDUE weight being given to his firing in an article about a company which previously employed him as CEO. Reviewing the article now, however, I must begin to ask if it meets WP:CORPDEPTH or WP:ORGIN without a discussion of Vega's termination. Conversely, would an article on Vega meet notability criteria without fouling WP:BLP1E? The two issues appear to be intertwined. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln)  (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

text: I think Commo's changes satisfy the need to include mention of the lawsuit without making it into more than the sources would support. Good work everyone. Jojalozzo 02:12, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

text: One of the interesting things about the case is that Vega didn't actually lose the wrongful termination lawsuit.  The judgement won't be final for a while, so I don't expect any secondary sources yet. Please post if you find some. The case keeps evolving.  Even after a "final" judgement is final, there will always be appeals. You can log on to the Harris County clerk's website and view the case's documents, but it requires a free login for security purposes.  If you read the case's petition, you can see that there was drastic upheaval in the Amigo Energy management in the summer leading up to Vega's termination. As the founder and active CEO of Amigo Energy who was responsible for the actions of the company, he did not agree with or condone the actions of other Fulcrum executives in charging inappropriately high rates to customers.  You can see the hordes of complaints lodged by Amigo customers against Amigo that summer merely by looking at the main article's history page.  I haven't bothered to recite the complaints references, but I can if that helps. In response to the numerous complaints, the PUC stepped in, opened an investigation of Amigo about the high rates, and told Amigo to re-rate the customers' bills with a lower rate. Then the Fulcrum executives ignored the PUC's orders and instead misrepresented the PUC's order as supporting the original too-high rates when they communicated with the Amigo customers. When Vega accidentally walked in un-invited on a meeting of Fulcrum and Amigo management and discovered a fraudulent and misrepresentative letter that the management team was planning to send to mis-billed customers at the beginning of October 2008, he was terminated shortly after for clearly stating that this letter could not be sent out with its misrepresentations.  Upon Vega's termination, he was not paid for his earned bonus, unused vacation, or the value of his equity in the company, even though Fulcrum had previously agreed to do so in Vega's employment contract.  He even asked politely about his earned compensation and equity.  So he had to file a civil suit to get Fulcrum to pay him for these components that he had already earned or owned.  And in August 2011, and jury unanimously agreed that Vega was wrongfully terminated and that Fulcrum should pay him for his equity interest in the company, which they valued at about $2M. There are more details, and the case is ongoing, even though the original trial is over. The Fulcrum executive team had to work really hard after that summer to change their image with both the PUC and the public.  The mention of the Vega termination, along with the heavy number or customer complaints, gives a general wikipedia reader a little bit of insight into the ethics and actions of the Fulcrum executive team and the strategic shifting that took place at Amigo in 2008.  The references for this paragraph are the Harris County district clerk site's documents for this case, which I cannot effectively link to here because of the clerk site's security measures. Feel free to log in and read the documents. 70.138.109.103 (talk) 06:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds like you have a personal interest in this issue. Do you have a personal or business relationship with any of the executives of Fulcrum or Amigo? Jojalozzo 17:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I think this is obviously a NPOV WP:NPOV issue.  There is a lot of apparently original content in the latest additions.  Someone should make a separate page for Vega if it is notable, with a "see also" pointing to it as suggested by Alan the Roving Ambassador.  Just my thoughts :) 64.125.194.66 (talk) 19:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Yes, I have ongoing business relationships with most of the parties involved in the lawsuit.  I was surprised when I was contacted by both sides of this case as a potential witness as I really didn't have much to add, but that made me start looking through the court docs to see what was going on, beyond what others had already told me.  I knew some of what had happened and how the customer service representative's were told to handle customers, but I didn't know the extent or detail.  The court docs have been very informative all the way around.  70.138.109.103 (talk) 22:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable source regarding Vega's termination 

message: Is the NPOV tag in the 'History' section still necessary? Beagel (talk) 18:59, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag 

message: Wikipedia is not a place to act out the vindication of a disgruntled employee or competitor.  The language added by 70.138.109.103 to the Performance and complaints section is heavily weighted against Amigo in general, and NPOV problems have already been established regarding this user's involvement in a lawsuit with the company.  Please, add to the relevant, informative nature of this article, and don't simply inflame this process by building a case against your least-favorite electric company.  By all Wikipedia standards, collection of data from government agencies, even if it is public, and flaming a company on their article page is not notable, relevant, and neutral.  Even addressing complaint statistics at all is undue weight, unless those complaint statistics are covered by a third party, such as a news source.  Given the obvious NPOV and other issues here, I am undoing the revision, PLEASE ADD TO THIS DISCUSSION, don't just go repost your agenda!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.125.194.66 (talk) 21:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Performance and complaints