In 2007 we decided to participate in Nicor’s Budget Plan program where they supposedly evened out your monthly bills. They informed us, at the time, that it would be $220 per month. Their website says that every 4 months they re-evaluate this charge. Well, for 26 months we paid $220 never reading all the details on the bill nor trying to understand what they were for. So, the MoneySaver in an effort to understand and reduce our gas bill pulled all the bills for the past several years and what I found was --- Nicor owed us $861. Yes, $861 dollars that we had been overpaying.
After a long conversation with the customer service team they confirmed this fact and made no apologize for continuing to bill us at $220 since the budget program is volunteer. I am sorry to say that this took me 3 hours to explore/identify/cancel the service. Hopefully you won't find this same problem. If so, cancel the service.
There are other ways to save money on gas. The gas company’s website has a very user friendly outline description of each item on the bill. Educate yourself. http://www.nicor.com/en_us/residential/understanding_your_bill/features.htm
And, each bill has a blank meter on the back. I encourage you to use this to read your own meter every time a bill comes in. This way you can monitor that you are being changed for the amount of gas you use. I just started this last month and will report back should I find any savings in this action. You can also educate yourself on ways to use less gas. Be sure to review and do as much as you can; we picked up a few new tips.
http://www.nicor.com/en_us/residential/energy_efficiency_tips/default.htm
Program Savings ----- for us $861 annually. For you, the dollar savings will vary by how many of the gas savings tips you can institute to run your home more efficiently.
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I'm really glad you brought this to my attention. I also had a huge credit on my account (over $1,000!). However, my problem was that I had an automatic payment set up through my online bill pay with my bank, so it was cranking out $200 per month to Nicor. When I went and looked back at my recent bills, they (Nicor had, in fact, adjusted my budget billing amount down to $20 and I was still just automatically paying $200! It was MY fault, not theirs.
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