If you receive a call from a power company threatening to turn your lights off unless you pay immediately, you’re probably the victim of a scam.
Dominion Energy is attempting to combat the 49 percent rise in utility scams after customers called and threatened to disconnect in exchange for immediate payment, a release from the company said Wednesday.
Utility scams are not only a nuisance but a serious threat to personal security, the release said.
The tactics of the scammers change frequently, a report from the Federal Trade Commission said, but the most common techniques are offering to cut a payment on a utility bill, telling a customer that their payment is past due or promising federal assistance.
Dominion is working with local and federal law to monitor these scams. So far nationally in the past year awareness of these scams have resulted in the shutdown of nearly 500 utility scam phone numbers, the release said.
For those who use Dominion Energy and want to stay ahead of the scammers, Dominion listed actions in their release that scammers often do during calls and are not procedures performed in the Dominion business.
In providing the scammer-spotting information, Dominion hopes to help people better determine real Dominion phone calls from scammer calls.
“Customers report that the caller ID on their phone says ‘Dominion’ when they are actually being contacted by a scammer,” said Marc Gaudette, director of corporate security, safety & health at Dominion Energy. “They are told the power to their home or business will be cut within minutes if payment (usually via a pre-paid debit card or credit card) is not provided immediately.Customers are given a fake number to call for payment, and the recording is a copy of Dominion Energy’s own phone greeting.”
According to the release, the phone calls from scammers often turn aggressive and threatening and ask for immediate payment. In the release, Dominion stated that they don’t conduct business this way.
If a call starts to show signs of aggression or requires any sort of immediate payment, Dominion warns that these are signs of a scammer.
If a customer believes that a phone call could be from a utility scammer, hang up and call Dominion at 1-866-DOM-HELP. At this number, customers are able to confirm whether or not a payment is due and not from any other number.
In a report from the FTC, these warnings were encouraged to be taken seriously because once a scammer has a customer’s credit card or other personal information, there is no way of getting any of the money back.
These types of scams don’t only come from energy companies, USA.gov said in a report. This past year Equifax, one of the three largest credit reporting companies in the nation, experienced a breach that impacted 145 million Americans. This puts personal information such as social security and credit card numbers at risk.
While Dominion focuses on energy scammers, USA.gov said Americans should know the warning signs for various types of scammers.
The best way to combat any type of fraud, Dominion says, is to report it.
In efforts to decrease the rate of utility scammers, both Dominion and the FTC suggest callers should write down the contact information, such as phone numbers or names, as soon as they suspect the call is a scam, write down the contact information such as phone numbers or names.
For more information on protection from utility scams, visit dominionenergy.com/scams.
