[dragonwriter]

> Griddy no longer exists

Griddy is shutting down. They exist for the moment, the debt they are owed is an asset, and even if they are dissolved their assets will be sold off to pay their creditors, so someone will be owed the money.

[nrmitchi]

The customer debt from this can be sold off, but you might be lucky to get a penny-on-the-dollar for it.

[dragonwriter]

Maybe, because it's going to (on average) be hard to collect. But the debt doesn't go away automatically or get reduced, it goes to whoever paid that penny...

(Now, if that's John Oliver [0], maybe it also gets forgiven, but that's not the usual case...)

[0] https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/john-oliver-buys-15...

[toast0]

There's a statute of limitations on collecting debt. Looks like in Texas, it's 4 years. A creditor (or its assignees) can certainly take debtors to court and get a judgement, which would reset the statute. But that's a lot of expense, and may not be recouped.

If Griddy is booted out of ERCOT, Griddy (or its assignees) probably can't prevent them from switching to other providers with a balance due, and probably can't have their electricity turned off for non-payment, so for customers that ended up with a balance due in the thousands, I expect they'll have to write off a lot of that.

(I'm not a lawyer, if I was a lawyer, I wouldn't be admitted in Texas, I didn't even read the law, just a web page that looked appropriate)

[unishark]

Presumably it would only cost a penny because whoever buys it doesn't expect to collect very much and will be motivated to negotiate.

It would be really nice if rather than taking a low amount they sell it directly to the debtors themselves for such a markdown, but I guess they'd think that sets a bad precedent.

[nrmitchi]

Haha that's just what we need here, all of the "winter storm electricity" debt becoming (yes, a lower amount of) "income tax owed to the IRS" debt.