Grateful consumer rewards CUB with chocolate
December 3, 2009—Success was sweet for CUB after the consumer group helped a man save up to $600 a year on his phone bill.

Telecom Rights Specialist Annette Evans and other CUB staffers showed consumers how to save an average of nearly $190 a year at the consumer group's recent Tinley Park phone-bill clinic.
Martin Miles, a retired computer specialist at Northeastern Illinois University, was paying about $90 a month for calling plans on two phone lines. Then he talked to Telecom Rights Specialist Annette Evans. Now, the 71-year-old Chicagoan estimates he’s saving $40 to $50 a month.

“She was fantastic,” Martin said.

Annette didn’t hesitate to fight fire with fire when she said the AT&T rep got "kind of testy” during a grueling call that Martin said lasted more than 90 minutes. Martin loved it: “She was fighting for me!”

Annette recommended the Consumer’s Choice—the low-cost calling plans that CUB designed and AT&T is forced to market under a legal settlement—for both lines. She also told him to sign up for Pioneer Telephone, one of the nation’s best long-distance deals, at 2-3 cents per minute.

It was just another day at the office for Annette, but Martin felt she had gone “above and beyond,” and he hatched a plan to thank her, using his son, Barry, who happens to run a Chicago chocolate business, www.TummyTicklersByDylanAndJake.com.

“I called him up and said...’This lady did a great kindness for me and I want to give her something,’” Martin said.

Just before Halloween, CUB received a cake box decorated with orange and black ribbon. Inside was a chocolate brownie loaf decorated with a gummy-bear Count Dracula and a taffy apple that had been smothered in so much chocolate and nuts that it was the size of a softball.

Annette didn’t just sit back on her sweet success. She sent Martin a thank you. “A lot of times people will receive something and that’s the end of it. She sent me a nice note… and a CUB pamphlet,” Martin said. “I thought that was sweet.”

So sweet, in fact, that Martin is telling all his friends about CUB.

“I say, ‘You want to cut your phone bill down? Call CUB,’” Martin said.

If CUB helps you save, share some of those savings with us. Help our team protect your bottom line as about $1 billion of your money hangs in the balance in cases before state regulators and the courts.