Duke Energy offers tips to prevent utility scams

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Duke Energy is expanding a campaign to protect its nearly 8 million customers from utility-impostor scammers. The company, a founding member of Utilities United Against Scams, is reminding customers of tactics used by scammers to steal their money.

More than 37,500 Duke Energy customers have reported scam attempts since the company began tracking reports in June 2015. About 6% to 7% fell victim to the scams, losing a total of nearly $2 million, according to a news release.

From January through September 2019, more than 10,000 Duke Energy customers reported receiving a scam attempt. Of these, 552 customers, or about 5.5%, paid the scammers, totaling nearly $316,000 in losses, the release said.

“Scammers’ techniques are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, making it harder for utility customers to differentiate between scams and legitimate messages,” Jared Lawrence, Duke Energy’s vice president of customer operations for Piedmont Natural Gas and Metering Services, said in the release.

Phone scammers posing as utility providers call and insist customers are delinquent on their bills. The scammer typically claims a disconnection is pending, rigs caller ID to make it look like the call is from a utility provider and demands the money in the form of a prepaid debit card.

Common scam tactics include:

• A caller ID display with the customer’s utility’s name
• A mimicked interactive voice response menu that customers typically hear when they call their utility
• Threats to disconnect power, water or natural gas service to a customer’s home or business within an hour
• Immediate payment demands by prepaid debit card

Customers who suspect they have been victims of fraud or who feel threatened during contact with one of these scammers should:

• Hang up the phone.
• Call the utility provider by using the phone number provided on the bill or on the company’s official website, followed by a call to the police.
• Never purchase a prepaid debit card or gift card to avoid service disconnection or shutoff. Do not pay over the phone if immediate payment is demanded by a prepaid card to avoid a disconnection. Legitimate utility companies do not specify how customers should make a bill payment, and they always offer a variety of ways to pay a bill, including accepting payments online, by phone, automatic bank draft, mail or in person.

The Utilities United Against Scams is a consortium of more than 140 U.S. and Canadian electric, water and natural gas companies, and their respective trade associations, that raises awareness of utility scams targeting customers.

The consortium has helped shut down nearly 5,000 toll-free phone numbers used by utility impostor scammers, the release said.