Electrify America ran a "free charging" promo over the holidays. I decided to try them for the first time on January 3 in the evening. I saw the following screen saying "This session is on us" and started charging: To my surprise, I was charged at the end of the session. I emailed EA, asking them why this happened, but had no reply. I then called them to get more info. I was told, after 30 minutes of conversations with two reps, that the promo had expired almost 24 hours prior. They said that they had a problem pushing out updated messages/screens to their chargers, but this did not happen prior to the end of the promotion. I asked for a refund given their problems, but they refused, saying that the fine print on the screen says that the promotion ended earlier that day (almost 24 hours earlier at this point). They agreed that it was misleading but blamed me for not reading the fine print and simply relying on their primary message. I understand that companies make mistakes with keeping things up to date. I don't understand, and cannot forgive, however, when they refuse to make make things right for customers when they make mistakes. I was asking for $5 back. Worse yet, they blamed me for taking them at their word and not reading their fine print. Is this par for the course with EA? If so, I will gladly take my brand new EV exclusively to EVGo chargers in the future (even if they don't offer "free" charging over the holidays).
I’ve only had good experiences with EA and their reps. In this case they are technically right as the info is there, even in fine print but it is a PR screw up. I would be irritated too if I were you. I wonder how many other people had the same thing happen to them? Was it all their stations displaying this offer or just a few that they couldn’t correct? If it were just a few I would comp the customer some how. Ive used EVGo more than a few times and they are really nice but slow compared to EA.
This was my first interaction with Electrify America and it was far from positive. First charger didn't work and locked up my port for a few minutes before releasing. This happened twice. I then called customer service, whose recommendation was to try another charger. I believe the promotion was national. They said that they had problems pushing out updates that would discontinue promotion of the offer but that it failed in some locations. (Who knows if this is true.) Other machines at the location were also promising "on us."
Yip, EA are run by cheap skates who don't know how to build a business. They're so desperate for revenue (to attract investment), their willing to screw their customers to get it. Such short term thinking. If they used the text "free holiday charging..." instead of "this charging session...", they'd have a legal leg to stand on. But they didn't and doubled down on their fraud, knowing no one is going to persue them in the courts for $5. Best bet is to file a complaint with BBB, and leave honest reviews on BBB, Google etc. You won't get your $5 back but it'll cost them a whole lot more than $5 in lost revenue.
Electrify America (EA) is not directed by CCS-1, EV makers who may have a vested interest in reliable, fast DC charging. In contrast, EA was a 'penalty' for the VW's diesel fiasco, not a critical service for CCS-1 EV deployment. If you're happy with EA, good. Just my initial testing in 2016 was disappointing because it cost $24 versus $6 in gas for our 2014 BMW i3-REx. As recently as November 2021, my wife had an unsuccessful EA charging session. But your mileage and experience may be different. Bob Wilson
The problem with EA is that their chargers are either broken, or take almost 5 minutes to get a charge to start. Hard pass.
I did not have this experience on my drive from Boston to Milwaukee and back. It wasn’t perfect, I did have one or two slow starts but the rest went off without a hitch.
