• Fair and ethical business practices
  • Consumer Responsibility
  • Mediation
  • Education
  • Counseling
  • Building bridges of trust and collaboration between businesses and consumers

Mission Statement

We encourage both consumer responsibility and ethical business practices achieved through a program of education, mediation, and counseling. Our organization facilitates the building of collaboration and trust between consumers and merchants.

Northeast CONTACT advocates individual responsibility and self-help, enabling informed consumers to make wise decisions, abide by their agreements, and deal honestly and fairly in business transactions.

We support merchants in their efforts to provide customer satisfaction programs that stimulate collaborative trade.

Northeast CONTACT is committed to better business through ongoing positive, fair, and profitable customer/merchant relationships.

State of Maine map

Brief History

Northeast CONTACT, Inc. (Consumers of Maine Bringing Action Together) was established by John Supranovich and eight friends in February of 1972 at his small apartment on Essex Street in Bangor, Maine. At the time John was working as a local radio talk show host, fielding many calls from consumers with questions and complaints about unfair treatment in their business transactions.

The first office was a shoebox-sized space generously donated by the local Unitarian Church. The agency later moved to larger quarters in former military barracks near Maine Avenue. In 1980 CONTACT moved to 189 Exchange Street and conducted business there for 23 years. In 2003, we moved to our present location at 109 State Street, Bangor.

For almost 40 years, Northeast CONTACT has provided solid solutions to consumers and businesses struggling to find equitable and common ground in their business dealings. While our agency is not staffed by attorneys and we do not provide legal services, there is no doubt CONTACT has resolved thousands of consumer cases, cases where the legal community, the Better Business Bureau, and the Maine Attorney General’s office were unwilling or unable to assist.

Northeast CONTACT is funded by business and individual memberships. We do not receive Federal or State dollars. There are many local communities that are very generous in their support of our organization, recognizing the valuable services we provide to their citizens. We are Northeast CONTACT, the oldest agency of its kind in the United States.

Disclaimers

Northeast CONTACT does not provide legal services or advice. If you have retained an attorney or use the Maine Attorney General's office, CONTACT will not be able to assist you without written request from them.

We require that you have attempted to resolve your dispute at all levels available to you before we become actively involved.

We strongly encourage self-help and will require you to do some work yourself. If there are helping agencies with jurisdiction, we will refer you. If you are not satisfied with their intervention, we will consider reactivating your case.

CONTACT reserves the right to determine whether your complaint is appropriate for direct intervention and whether you have grounds to proceed. If we determine you are at fault in a matter, we will tell you so.

Northeast CONTACT provides mediation services that require good faith by all the parties involved. We do our best to reach successful consensus of the parties, but there are no promises or guarantees that this can be achieved by our mediators.

Abuse of membership: unauthorized sharing of your password or allowing non-members access in other ways to your membership benefits will result in revocation of your membership without a refund and refusal of membership and services in future.