Greg's Corner

County Sheriff fooled by scam

By Greg Collier

We often try to warn our readers that anybody can fall for the right scam. Your education and socioeconomic status don’t matter when it comes to con artists. You could be a CEO with a PhD raking in billions of dollars and still fall prey to a virtual kidnapping or romance scam. You could be a CPA and fall for the fake check scam. We’ve even discussed a time when someone from the Better Business Bureau, whose job it is to warn about scams, falling victim to a banking scam. Everybody has a scam with their name on it. If the circumstances are just right for the scammer, just about anybody can be fooled.

This is exactly what happened to the County Sheriff of Vance County in North Carolina. Vance County is part of the greater Raleigh-Durham metro area, so we’re not talking about some remote and rural county. The Sheriff was at the hospital where his wife was recovering from a major surgery when he received a phone call that was supposedly from his electric company. They told the Sheriff that he was behind on his account and if he didn’t make a payment right then and there, the electric company was going to turn off his power in 30 to 45 minutes.

Besides being concerned about his wife, the Sheriff was also worried about his dog who was at the house, and the Sheriff didn’t want his dog to fall victim to the extreme Carolina summer heat. With everything that was on his mind, the Sheriff gave the caller his credit card number to ensure that the power going to his home wouldn’t be turned off. It wasn’t until later when the Sheriff was able to gather his thoughts that he realized he had been scammed. He was able to cancel his credit card before the scammers could do anything with it. Thankfully, the Sheriff’s wife is said to be recovering nicely.

The Sheriff went on to say that because the situation was so stressful, it made him vulnerable to the scam. He added that he’s been warning county residents for years about such scams and wanted his residents to learn from his mistakes and not fall for the scam.

The majority of power companies in the United States, if not all of them, will not call you to threaten you with termination of service for failure to pay. You’ll receive written statements in the mail letting you know that your account is past due. In the case that someone is unfortunate enough not to be able to make payment, you’ll also receive a written statement letting you know when your power is scheduled to be turned off.

Again, it only takes a moment for scammers to fool even the most wary of us. Even if it’s an extremely stressful situation, which scammers thrive on, try to take a moment to step back and logically assess the situation before making any kind of payment.