Texas Public Utility Commission Informal Consumer Complaints

Complaint records filed with the Texas Public Utility Commission's Consumer Protection Division after customers could not resolve issues directly with their electric, telephone, water, or sewer providers. Columns suggest tracking includes Complaint Number, Refund or Credit Amount ($), Staff Determination, County, and dates for each stage of the complaint process. The dataset's presence on multiple government platforms indicates its role in regulatory oversight and consumer protection transparency.

Use Cases

• Analyzing complaint volume and resolution trends over time using Date Received, Date Closed, and Staff Determination.
• Mapping complaint hotspots and service issues by geography using County and Customer Zip Code.
• Assessing financial impact and company performance by Utility Type and Refund or Credit Amount ($).
• Evaluating complaint handling efficiency by comparing Date Sent to Company, Date Company Responded, and Date Closed.
• Categorizing complaint reasons and contact methods using Complaint Category Description and Method of Contact.

Strengths

• Contains detailed process tracking with at least 19 distinct columns covering complaint details, resolution, and geography.
• Cross-platform presence on Socrata and Data.gov signals importance and official status for regulatory transparency.

Limitations

• Key metadata is missing or conflicting: row count, size, license, and author are unknown across all sources.
• The 'last updated' dates conflict between platforms, with Socrata showing 2026-05-01 and Data.gov showing 2026-03-25.
• Data.gov source lacks column information, limiting a complete understanding of the dataset's structure from that platform.

Provenance

Source

Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC), Consumer Protection Division (CPD).

Collection Method

Likely collected through formal complaint submissions from consumers.

Freshness

2026-05-01 12:51:27 (from Socrata)

Geography

Texas, United States.