CUB says buyers are mislead

Thousands of area consumers have been slammed with soaring natural gas bills after switching services from traditional utilities to unregulated gas suppliers, Chicago-based Citizens Utility Board said Monday.

CUB's Gas Market Monitor, a free online tool that tracks monthly price offers by unregulated suppliers, shows 93 percent of the plans marketed by these companies have cost consumers money when compared with prices of the regulated gas companies, such as Nicor Gas. The average loss has been about $270.

The companies' marketing materials prey on fears of skyrocketing natural gas costs and often give misleading information about prices, CUB officials said.

The watchdog group has received complaints that door-to-door salespeople posed as representatives from, or claimed their service was endorsed by, the Illinois Commerce Commission, Peoples Gas, Nicor and even CUB.

"Competition in the natural gas market was sold to consumers as a way to lower their heating bills," CUB Executive Director David Kolata said in a statement. "But exactly the opposite is happening. Hundreds of thousands of consumers are paying substantially more than they should on their gas bills, often because unregulated suppliers misled them or didn't give them all the facts."