Power company CEO almost falls for shut-off scam

Power company CEO almost falls for shut-off scam

By Greg Collier

The holiday season is probably one of the worst times to be preyed upon by shut-off scammers. Not only is most of the country starting to experience much colder weather, but many of us have a lot on our minds. These are two situations shut-off scammers are hoping to find their victims in.

In case you’re not familiar with the shut-off scam, this is when scammers call you posing as your local power company. The scammers will say that you’re behind in your bills, and your power will be shut off in 15 minutes. They’re hoping you’ll panic and make a payment to them, usually through some untraceable means like gift cards or cryptocurrency.

Recently, in San Diego, shut-off scammers unknowingly called the CEO of the local gas and electric company. Posing as representatives of the CEO’s company, they told the CEO there was an issue with his bill, and that his service was in danger of being terminated. The CEO told the phony customer service rep his bill is normally deducted from his bank account.

According to the CEO, the scammers were ready for that response. They told him this was a problem they were running into and plenty of other customers were saying the same thing. The scammer may have tipped their hand when they told the CEO they could go into his bank account and help him correct the situation. The CEO hung up on the caller and called the actual customer service department of his company, who told him it was a scam. He was even taken aback over how much information the scammers had about not only him, but other members of his family as well.

We often say that anybody can fall for a scam, regardless of socioeconomic status or education level. Here we had a successful CEO who almost got taken by scammers posing as his own employees.

But getting back to the scam itself, utility companies don’t threaten customers with termination of service by only giving them a 15-minute warning. If, for some reason, you were to be behind in your account, you would receive a written warning in the mail notifying you of the termination date. Typically, the utilities will give you enough time to try to make some kind of payment arrangement.

If you receive a call like this that threatens to turn off your service, hang up and call the number to the utility company listed on your bill. This will allow you to not only check the status of your account, but will also warn them about the scam.