Saturday, February 23, 2008

Saving Money on your Phone Bill

When you open your utility bill or a notice from the DMV and out falls that little flyer from the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), what do you think? Advertising? Nuisance? Junk mail? For years I thought, “What a bother!” and wondered why the sender was being required to send me what looked like promotional material for CUB.

Next time, read it carefully. And then (or sooner) go to the CUB website at www.citizensutilityboard.org and take a look at how CUB can help you.

Recently, a reader alerted me to CUB. Her husband and she had just switched their long-distance service to Pioneer Telephone. Not only will they get low long-distance rates, but they will also get a $20.00 credit for signing up for Pioneer’s “Rate Buster” long-distance plan. (AT&T might nick you $9.00 for changing your long-distance carrier.) These readers also were able to cut the local-call portion of their basic telephone bill by $15.00/month by switching to the Consumer Choice Plus plan.

For free phone-bill analysis by CUB, call CUB at 866-688-4282

And check out the $10.00/month DSL plan of AT&T. Know about this? Probably not. Read about it on the CUB website.

Pioneer’s inter-state rates are $0.027/minute, and intra-state rates are $0.019/minute. Compare these with whatever you are currently paying. Can you save some money? A lot of money? There is no monthly billing fee if you allow them to email the monthly statement to you.

You can sign up at Pioneer at www.lowestphoneratesonthenet.com/?agentid=PT5947 or you can call Pioneer at 877-292-6878

Pioneer also offers a referral bonus to persons who recommend new customers. Have the name and phone number handy of the person who told you about Pioneer. It won’t cost you anything, and it’ll be a nice thank-you to the person who told you about it.

Many thanks to the reader who sent me this information and asked me to share it here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just to clarify--the AT&T bill may charge you for three services (if you also get DSL or dialup from AT&T): (1) local calls; (2) local toll calls, in-state long distance, and interstate long distance; and (3) your Internet connection.

(1) We switched from an AT&T plan and dropped Linebacker to get AT&T's Consumer's Choice Plus (which includes voice mail and caller ID). That saved us $15/month. CUB designed three Consumer's Choice plans for local calls that AT&T must offer. Check with CUB first about the specifics. Your AT&T rep may be "misinformed" about the features; ours was.

(2) We dropped AT&T's Just Call 300 to get Pioneer Telephone's service for local toll, in-state long distance, and interstate long distance. With Just Call 300, we were paying 7 cents/minute for 300 minutes ($20/month), then 9 cents/minute. Now we pay 2-3 cents/minute.

Understand the components of your bill. Study the CUB material on the website, or call CUB. Then cut your costs.

Anonymous said...

Gus is a child molester

Gus said...

The malicious and untrue comment posted at 7:54PM is being reported to the Woodstock Police Department, with a request that they investigate and identify the poster's identify for prosecution. It would be quite simple to delete that posting and continue to laugh about it, but I think it is now time to make an example out of this person. He probably thinks that "anonymous" means he cannot be traced, but his computer leaves its tracks every time he hits "Send."

Anonymous said...

you're a funny guy gus!

Anonymous said...

and "agentid=PT5947" could receive up to a 22% commision on that good deal-

http://www.lowestphoneratesonthenet.com/agent_program.asp

I wonder who agentid=PT5947 is- hmmmm.....

Gus said...

The link to the Pioneer Telephone website was provided by them as a convenient way for a new customer to obtain the $20.00 Credit from CUB.

Anonymous said...

Be sure and let us know when Andy and Barney catch this guy! He is obviously more of a danger to society than some of the other people Gus dislikes. Hey, I just figured out why Gus hammers so hard on some of this trivia-he doesn't "like" it. No question about the validity or importance of the problem. If Gus doesn't like it you pay a fine.

Anonymous said...

i guess gus is touchy on this subject because maybe he lives with one? look up the last name Hughes in Woodstock. could the registered address be a coincidence? i dont think so. i bet this will deleted since gus doesn't want people to know the real truth.
http://www.isp.state.il.us/sor/