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CUB, AARP Illinois call for sweeping reforms of electric and gas markets in Illinois

This week, CUB held news conferences across the state (Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, Alton and Champaign) calling on the General Assembly to pass sweeping reforms to protect customers from a wave of electric and gas rip-offs that we have seen in the market over the last few years.

These are some of the sad stories we’ve seen:

  • In Skokie, a woman was on a plan that charged her double for electricity. “Grateful for your work,” she said, after we met her at a utility bill clinic and alerted her to the bad deal.
  • At a utility bill clinic in Bethalto we found a consumer chained to an alternative electricity supplier rate that was at least 55 percent higher than the utility rate.
  • A Chicago-area man saw his rate with an alternative gas supplier triple the utility rate, overcharging him by hundreds of dollars. “To me that’s price-gouging,” he said.

This is a significant statewide problem, and we need Illinois legislators to pass sweeping reforms to protect seniors and families from overpaying by potentially hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

The energy companies have a lot of lobbyists and money, but we have YOU. Please, send a message to your representatives: Enough is enough. Clean up Illinois’ energy markets!