In The Meanwhile

Back in Illinois there is an organization called
Citizen's Utility Board (CUB) that is looking
out for utility frauds missed by the state organs
who are supposed to provide that function and
don't unless they're running for office as Mike
Cox, our republican attorney general is (running
for governor and making a big splash) at the
moment.

We badly need something like this in Michigan.
What follows is bits and pieces of a recent
mailing I got from them.

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Help CUB fight for a $287 million Nicor refund

In this decade alone, CUB has uncovered two
scandals involving Chicago-area gas companies.
A few years back Peoples Gas gave its customers
a record $100 million refund after CUB accused
the company of improper dealings with an affiliate
of Enron.

And now, we’re locked in battle with Nicor Gas to
win a $287 million refund for its customers. We
can see the light at the end of the tunnel—but
we need your help to get there.

Nicor, which made $119.5 million last year, is
fighting us every step of the way. Please give
to our consumer defense fund now, so we can beat
Nicor’s army of lawyers and give customers the
big refund they deserve.

[...]

Nancy won’t soon forget CUB’s recent Carbondale
phone clinic. We discovered that for nearly a
decade she had been paying for a maintenance
plan on a second phone line—a second phone
line that didn’t exist!

Thanks to CUB, Nancy got a $660 credit! She was
“astounded,” but for CUB it was just another
day at the office. With your help over the last
25 years, we’ve fought rate hikes and spotted
billing errors, such as the one that plagued
Nancy, to help save consumers more than
$10 billion.

Now, facing unprecedented confusion in the phone
market and nearly $1 billion in rate-hike cases,
we need your help more than ever. Please help us
continue to deliver on our promise to help cut
telephone, natural gas, and electric bills for
all Illinois consumers. And tell your friends
about CUB too.

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By the way, we have the same phone company here
in Michigan as they have over in Illinois. The
purpose of posting this information is to show
that not only is corruption just about universal,
but so is incompetence.

Bill Vajk