Crossed Wires: Utility Scams Target Consumers

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] Steve Crosby: I've learned to ignore most of these calls and I thought this was a scam, so I started to hang up on the guy, but then he said, "I know you've transferred your electricity to Direct Energy, but you also have transferred the plumbing. So I thought to myself, wait a minute, this guy knows that a week ago I transferred to Direct Energy; there's no way he would know that unless what he says is true that he really is from Eversource.

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[00:00:38] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

[00:00:43] Bob: When you plug in your TV or turn on your stove, you just expect these things to work, and you probably don't think a lot about how electricity or gas gets to your home until the bill comes. Then you might think about shopping around for a cheaper alternative, an option that's available to about two-thirds of the US market according to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Local competition was introduced to the modern energy marketplace during the 1990s opening the door for consumers to switch energy providers. That's good, but it can also be confusing, and as always, criminals have rushed in to take advantage of any confusion. According to Utilities Now, 1 in 5 US consumers has been the target of a utility scam. In the end, a threat to have your electricity turned off can be really, really scary. So that's why we're bringing you today's story. You've got to hear how remarkably elaborate it is.

[00:01:45] Steve Crosby: My name is Steve Crosby, and I live in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which is a neighborhood in Boston.

[00:01:54] Bob: Steve has a long and distinguished career both in public service and in the private sector. Give, give me just a few highlights, if you would. I know it's hard, yeah, with your resume, it's very impressive, yeah.

[00:02:07] Steve Crosby: When you're 81 years old, (chuckles) when do you, so how far back... anyway, I've been Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at UMass Boston. I've been Chief of Staff to the Governor of Massachusetts, I've been campaign manager for the Mayor of Boston, the Chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. I've started a bunch of businesses, none of which went anywhere. And I started, cofounded a non-profit called The Civic Action Project. Cofounded The Civic Action Project, so it was a lot of different things.

[00:02:42] Bob: Anyway, you get the idea. Steve has done a lot of things and he's seen a lot of things, and he has a lot of impressive friends, that'll be important later. At any rate, like a lot of us, Steve was annoyed last fall about his rising electricity bill and decided to do something about it.

[00:03:00] Steve Crosby: I looked at my unit price and realized that I was paying an extravagant price from somebody that I thought was a reliable provider, so I decided to try to find a electrical provider that I could truly rely on, so I went to the City of Boston's website and they offer a number of companies to provide green energy, but also at a reliable price.

[00:03:26] Bob: And so, he picked one.

[00:03:30] Steve Crosby: One of them is called Direct Energy, and I looked them up and I thought they seemed like a reliable outfit, so I went through the process on the website of changing my energy supplier to Direct Energy, and notifying the main company here, Eversource, about that change.

[00:03:52] Bob: How complicated is that process?

[00:03:55] Steve Crosby: It was very, very simple. Just a website and all I did was make a few strokes of changes on the website. And from that point on, the, I understood Direct Energy and Eversource coordinated and the switch was made by them from Eversource to Direct Energy from my energy source. It was very simple.

[00:04:18] Bob: And you get a letter in the mail or something from them?

[00:04:20] Steve Crosby: I don't even think it got, I prob--, I must have gotten some kind of confirmation, but I don't remember that.

[00:04:26] Bob: Okay.

[00:04:26] Steve Crosby: I did it and forgot about it. It seemed, I knew other people who had done it. I knew that it was legit, so I never, I didn't spend any time thinking about it.

[00:04:35] Bob: For most people, switching providers is as simple as that. You don't even notice the change until a month or so later when a new looking bill arrives, but in this case, things go south for Steve pretty quickly. He gets a call from a man who says his name is John from Eversource, and there's a problem with the switchover. A big problem. He tells Steve that...

[00:05:00] Steve Crosby: That we were at risk to having our electricity cut off. And I've learned to ignore most of these calls and I thought this was a scam, so I started to hang up on the guy, but then he said, "I know you've transferred your energy to your electricity to Direct Energy, but you also have transferred the plumbing. And in, when you transfer the plumbing, we have to turn off the electricity supply from Eversource while they install their own wires to get the electricity to your house." So I thought to myself, wait a minute, this guy knows that a week ago I transferred to Direct Energy; there's no way he would know that unless what he says is true that he really is from Eversource.

[00:05:54] Bob: Now they have to turn off his power? Surely there is some misunderstanding, Steve thinks. At this point, let me back up and talk a bit more about what's going on when you pick a new energy company in case it's something you never thought about. There are wires that connect your house to the power grid, and there is the electricity that runs along those wires; those are two different functions that are often operated by two different companies. Switching electricity providers is a pretty simple option, but replacing the wires, the plumbing, if you will, the pipes, well that's a very different proposition. And in this case, Steve is being told he's opted to replace his entire plumbing and that's why his power will be turned off.

[00:06:42] Steve Crosby: Since I had made this legitimate change, I thought maybe there'd just been some mistake and I had inadvertently tried to switch the wires also.

[00:06:52] Bob: And when someone says your electricity's about to get cut off, well what, you think about the meat in the freezer? What do you think about?

[00:06:58] Steve Crosby: Well I just thought it was going to be a pain in the neck, and I forget how long they said it was going to be. I was still taking this pretty casually. I thought this was just a commonplace misunderstanding. Eversource was just checking in with me to make sure that this is what I really wanted to have happen. And I said, I don't, I don't want to change the wires. Let's fix this.

[00:07:18] Bob: Let's fix this, he tells John from Eversource.

[00:07:23] Steve Crosby: Yeah, so he says, "Well if that's the case, I can put you in touch with Direct Energy, and you can tell them you want to make the switch." So I said, okay, thanks, that's very helpful.

[00:07:34] Bob: John also offers to stay on the line to make sure the transaction is handled smoothly.

[00:07:40] Steve Crosby: And a woman answers the phone in a very professional way and says, "This is Direct Energy. How may I help you?" And I explained that there'd been a mistake that I had switched my supply of electricity to them, but I had not intended to switch the pipes as well, and I wanted to correct that and switch back and make sure that I stayed with Eversource and didn't lose my electricity for a while. She says, "Well you can't do that. You've already made an agreement, you already have a contract with us that you want both, and we've now implemented that and the people are on the way to your house to make the change and you can't, you can't switch now."

[00:08:25] Bob: You can't switch now. People are on the way to the house. Okay, this is no longer some small misunderstanding. Now it's a big problem. Steve's electricity is going to be cut off. There will be who knows what kind of disruption at his home.

[00:08:39] Steve Crosby: So I was dealing with this person from Direct Energy, supposedly in good faith saying, hey, that doesn't make any sense. I just don't, I don't want to switch the pipes, it was just a mistake. Can't you switch it back? And there were multiple back and forths, but fundamentally at that point, she said, "The only way we can do this is to, if you pay a fine of $900."

[00:09:03] Bob: Hmm.

[00:09:05] Steve Crosby: And I said, "That's ridiculous. You've got to be kidding me. That's, the Mayor's Office would never be permitting a company to pull a deal like that. That, that makes no sense." And she was very firm and said, "You have no choice. If you want to switch back, we can do it, but you need to pay us $900."

[00:09:26] Bob: A $900 fine for a simple mistake? And Steve isn't even sure it's his mistake. That's outrageous.

[00:09:34] Steve Crosby: So meanwhile, John from Eversource had stayed on the phone. So I went back to John, Direct Energy hangs up, and I go back to John and say to him, "This is ridiculous." And he said, "Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear this. We've had trouble with Direct Energy before. Let me talk to my manager and see what I can do with this." So he goes away for a little while and he comes back and he says, "We now have a policy that if you are forced in this scam to pay $900, we will pay you right back the $900. And if you want to go ahead and give, pay the $900, we will pay it back." And then he went on to say, "We, we've heard about this scam. We're preparing a lawsuit against Direct Energy. Would you mind if we record this conversation so I can use it, so we can use it in our lawsuit against Direct Energy." So I said, alright. If you'll pay me back the $900, I'll go ahead and cancel it, and by the way, if you need somebody to testify, I'd like to testify because this is really an incredible, horrific scam. And the guy said, "Okay, that would be terrific."

[00:10:52] Bob: So Steve begrudgingly decides to pay the $900, but before he switches the call back over to Direct Energy, John from Eversource says one more important piece of advice.

[00:11:04] Steve Crosby: "They may ask you to pay by credit card, and you might want to be careful about that because I don't think you want to give these people your credit card." So I thought, wow, what a good piece of advice. So I go back to Direct Energy, and I say, now I'm pretty angry, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to pay the $900." And they say, "Okay, give us your credit card number." And I said, "Yeah, forget it. I'm not giving you my credit card number. I know what kind of people you are." Thinking I was really smart. And I said, "I'll send you a check." And they said, "That's not good enough. We needed the money in advance. The people are on their way to your house right now. We're not going to stop it unless you actually put the $900 down." So I figured this was ridiculous, it was unreasonable, but by now I knew I was dealing with a scammer. I said, "I'll bring the check to you." And they said, "No, we're not in this, we're not, we're out of town. You can't do that. The only other alternative is you want to buy some gift cards and give us some pay through gift cards."

[00:12:06] Bob: Gift cards? That's another outrage. Why would he pay in gift cards? But Steve doesn't seem to have great options. They are on the way to his house to shut off the electricity.

[00:12:18] Steve Crosby: I kept saying maybe I should just pay it with a credit card and get this over with so I don't have to go get gift cards. And then I kept thinking if I give him a credit card, who knows what's going to happen. These guys are obviously really bad. So I reluctantly decided to go get in my car and drive to the local CVS and buy gift cards.

[00:12:43] Bob: He's on the phone the whole time.

[00:12:46] Steve Crosby: I'm standing in CVS in front of the gift cards where there are all different kinds of gift cards and he's advising me which gift cards to buy.

[00:12:54] Bob: And, and in what denomination too, right?

[00:12:56] Steve Crosby: He said, Don't do one 900," he said, "Do three-$300 credit cards." And he advised me that there was some reason, I forget what it was, but it sounded reasonable. And so I went out into the, my car with the gift cards, and Eversource switches me back to Direct Energy, and the Direct Energy person says, "Have you got the gift cards?" And I said, "Yes." And they said, "Okay, take a photograph of them, both sides, front and back, and send them to me and that will, we'll process it and that will take care of it," and I was burning at this point, but I said, "Okay." So I photographed the cards and, front and back, and sent them to the guy. Then I drove back to my house thinking, okay, this is about fixed. The phone hung up, I drove back to my house, fuming, but thinking this was resolved.

[00:13:56] Bob: Fuming, but thinking it's all resolved -- it is not.

[00:14:01] Steve Crosby: And then John calls me back and says, "Did you pay the $900?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Great. We're going to send you the check to reimburse you the 900 as soon as we get confirmation that this has been done."

[00:14:18] Bob: So Steve has to wait until he gets confirmation that his $900 refund is on its way and he can be sure that he won't lose power. So while he's waiting, he reaches out to an old friend to tell him about this Direct Energy scam so that other people can find out about all this. Remember, Steve worked in public service for a long time.

[00:14:40] Steve Crosby: I wrote a friend of mine who's a consumer reporter at The Boston Globe, a guy named Sean Murphy, to say, to tell him about him about this scam, 'cause I thought I'd been scammed by Direct Energy, and I wanted to alert Sean to this story, and so he could maybe write a story about it and alert other people to what was going on.

[00:15:03] Bob: But when Sean hears the story from Steve, well Sean has a very different perspective on what's happening.

[00:15:10] Steve Crosby: So when I called Sean, he very quickly said, "Hey, Steve, that doesn't make sense. You can't transfer the plumbing of your electricity. You can't transfer the wires. There's only one set of wires. You can transfer your electricity supplier, but you can't change your electricity plumbing that wires to your house. I think they were both scams."

[00:15:36] Bob: I think they were both scams? John from Eversource, he isn't the helpful advocate he appeared to me, he is in on it.

[00:15:45] Steve Crosby: So he immediately saw that it had been a double scam, that the Eversource guy was a liar and a scammer also. Um, and I said, "Oh my God, you're right, this is unbelievable."

[00:15:57] Bob: Steve was never talking to anyone from Eversource or Direct Energy. The whole thing was an elaborate performance to steal Steve's money. John was not an ally; he's an actor and a liar.

[00:16:10] Bob: And he was sympathetic the whole time, right? I'm sorry this happened...

[00:16:12] Steve Crosby: Totally sympathetic, yeah, and he's going, "Sorry this happened" and "We've had this before" and "These kinds of scams happen all the time, and we're so sorry." But the Eversource guy had done such a good job of sweet-talking me, and advising me on how to handle this that I had just totally fallen into it, and I was really under the sway of this guy who was really well-trained and the scam was really thought out. So I didn't get suspicious.

[00:16:41] Bob: But the criminals aren't done with Steve yet.

[00:16:45] Steve Crosby: I then hung up from Sean, and Eversource calls me back and said, "Have you got your 900 yet?" By this time I now knew that I had been scammed, and that Eversource, John, was a scammer, but I decided to play along with it for a little while.

[00:17:03] Bob: By the way, we don't recommend this. Once you realize that you're the victim of a scam, you should cut off all contact. Immediately.

[00:17:11] Steve Crosby: So I said, "No, I haven't got the confirmation yet." He says, "Switch me to Direct Energy. You can try one more time to get confirmation so I can pay your $900." And I go back to Direct Energy, and I say, "Have you confirmed my payment?" And the woman says, "Yes, we did get your $900, but we can't do this because you also agreed to change your gas." So these people were so aggressive that after they'd gotten the $900, and I, and rather than let me off the hook they thought maybe they could scam me into another $900.

[00:17:50] Bob: Oh I'm sure they were going to try to get more money, yeah.

[00:17:52] Steve Crosby: Yeah, so and I knew, so I said to them, I exploded to them and said something I'm sure that was quite crude and hung up. And then I went back to John at Eversource and had some harsh words with him and he, I said, "You guys, this is really outrageous. I don't know how you guys live with yourself. How do you do this for a living?" And eventually, John said some nasty things back to me and slammed down the phone and hung up, and that was the end of that.

[00:18:26] Bob: Ah, that sounds like a pretty intense 5 minutes.

[00:18:29] Steve Crosby: Yeah, it was. Well the whole, it took six hours. I was in the room four hours to do the whole thing.

[00:18:35] Bob: Using a kind of good cop/bad cop routine, the criminal knew just how to manipulate Steve.

[00:18:43] Bob: This was a 2 on 1 situation where one of them, not only was your friend but they, they tapped into your natural skepticism. Is that, you know what I'm saying?

[00:18:51] Steve Crosby: Yep.

[00:18:52] Bob: Oh my God. I can't believe these criminals are out there. You and I are going to stop this other criminal. That's partly how they...

[00:18:56] Steve Crosby: Yeah, totally.

[00:18:57] Bob: ... emotionally roped you in.

[00:18:59] Bob: So Sean writes the story in The Boston Globe about what happened to Steve, and the reaction is, well unlike anything Steve has ever experienced.

[00:19:08] Steve Crosby: It was quite amazing. As we discussed at the beginning of this, I've been involved in public life in a number of different ways for many years, and I've been involved in stories in The Boston Globe off and on for years. I never had, including some big controversial ones on the front page of the Globe, and I never had feedback from a story like I got from this. It was unbelievable. I got calls and emails and texts and the Lieutenant Governor wrote me. She's a, not really a friend, an acquaintance. The Lieutenant Governor wrote me and thanked me. Lots of people wrote me and said, "I've been trying to figure out how to help my mother not get scammed, and this story really helped. If you could fall for this, anybody could fall for this." And it still goes on. I went to my Pilates class, where I know people's faces, but I don't know anybody's names, and there's a big picture of me in The Globe when the story ran, and the women in my Pilates class say, "Was that you?" And we had a whole huge con--, so it was incredible. It really, and I think that's why The Globe knew to run it as a big story. They knew, as you do well, that this is a commonplace problem that a lot of people are dealing with, and it was satisfying not being, despite being humiliating, it was satisfying that lots of people said, thank you, this is helpful. I'm going to use this story to talk to my parents, which of course, I'm in the generation, not only parents, but grandparents.

[00:20:42] Bob: And I know you didn't sign up for this, but it sure seems to me that far more than $900 worth of good came out of this. So the price tag isn't so bad.

[00:20:49] Steve Crosby: Well that was, (chuckles) that was a generous way to put it.

[00:20:54] Bob: But even after all that, there are still some unanswered questions for Steve.

[00:20:59] Steve Crosby: We don't know to this day where the phony Eversource guy got the information about my switching to Direct Energy.

[00:21:08] Bob: Yeah, that's fascinating.

[00:21:10] Steve Crosby: The Globe reporter thinks that it was probably just random calls. They just were calling everybody thinking that eventually they'd find somebody who switched to Direct Energy. That doesn't seem credible to me to be honest. There's just that the universe of people out there who had switched from Eversource to Direct Energy in the last week or two have got to be tiny in the, in Greater Boston of like 3 million people. There are, as you well know, there's and there are lots of times when you can hear you're getting a scam call, they're just robocalling number after number after number hoping somebody will pick up. And you know when that's happening, and that did not play like this, and it, it, as I said, it just seems like the statistical likelihood of hitting somebody is so low that it's, would not be a very efficient way to go about this. But that was the first datapoint that gave me a sense of credibility that these people must be real, and then when the guy recommended that I not use credit cards, I thought, wow, this guy is really on my side. But it was, it was pretty incredible.

[00:22:25] Bob: It's a lot of work for, forgive me for insulting your $900, but that's a lot of work for $900.

[00:22:30] Steve Crosby: I had the same reaction. They had two people heavily involved for several hours, and it just, looking at it as a business, former businessman, I don't quite see the economic model. Unless it was just some, some guy in his house with his friend next, sitting next to him.

[00:22:48] Bob: Yeah, well this was too sophisticated for that. I mean I’m; I think you've already answered your own question. I kind of wish I knew what the next proposition was going to be because you switched your gas over too, right? They might have asked for $5000 for that one.

[00:23:01] Steve Crosby: Yeah, right.

[00:23:01] Bob: And then they sort of, the way these organizations run, once they get someone to send a gift card, then they know they have someone on the hook and they just try to escalate and escalate.

[00:23:09] Steve Crosby: Yeah.

[00:23:09] Bob: So that's part of it.

[00:23:11] Bob: We'll offer up a few more theories on how criminals got to Steve in a moment, but first what does Steve want people to learn from his situation?

[00:23:19] Steve Crosby: The lessons are incredible. It's, if I look back on it now as I just was reviewing the article before I talked to you, it still gives me the creeps. I'm so embarrassed that I fell by it. But I'm very good, usually. I never take phone calls that I can't identify. I know most of the rules about what not to respond to and the scams are everywhere these days. It's just horrifying. I've learned not to trust anybody about anything, which is bad.

[00:23:50] Bob: But by sharing his story, Steve has done a lot of good even though it doesn't always feel so good.

[00:23:59] Steve Crosby: I sent everybody the article. It's not something I was really pleased to have sent around.

[00:24:04] Bob: Yeah, of course.

[00:24:05] Steve Crosby: My high school class secretary from the Newton High School Class of 1963, asked me whether I wanted to send it around to our 1200 classmates.

[00:24:17] Bob: Oh my God. (chuckles)

[00:24:18] Steve Crosby: I said, no, I don't, maybe I don't want to go that far.

[00:24:22] Bob: (laughs) And that's excellent reunion fodder.

[00:24:26] Bob: Of course this crime worked because the criminals had perfect timing. They called Steve about this energy change right after he'd really initiated one. Okay, so how criminals know just when to reach out to someone who's in the process of changing providers, and how can you protect yourself? Well we have Monica Martinez here to talk about all that. She is Executive Director for Utilities United Against Scams.

[00:24:50] Monica Martinez: We represent over 140 utility companies across the United States and Canada, so we represent a large portion of North America, and with that, one of the things that we do is we try to work together with the utilities so that they can know what some of the scams are so that they can best make sure that they can enhance experiences for customers. As you can imagine getting education out, getting the word out, engaging with different consumer groups to let them know about the different types of scams is extremely important. We work together by talking to each other and letting each other know just what the latest trends are in scams. The scammers are always one step ahead, so we are trying to do our best to make sure that we have all of our efforts on our front lines and all of our communication avenues as much to, up to date as possible so that we are aware of how to help customers.

[00:25:48] Bob: Steve's story, which really boils down to pay us now or your power will be cut off, well it's way, way too common.

[00:25:57] Monica Martinez: We have seen that pattern before, and we have seen similar patterns like that. I think what we're seeing now, one of the trends with scams, is often we saw it as just one scammer. And now we're seeing scammers working together, and so what I mean by that is that sometimes there are two scammers working to reach you to make it seem like something's real. And the instance that was recently shared was certainly an instance where there were two individuals working together to help perpetrate that scam. And when that happens, it's hard to figure out and to navigate through, right? One time you think you're actually really connected to the actual utility company, in this circumstance, and then you're also thinking that you're connected with the alternative supplier, and you're relying on one of them for trust. And that is one of those scary things that starts to happen, because it's that back and forth of two individuals. That's the kind of, you know, like the good guy and the bad guy; unfortunately, they're both scamming. And that's the scary part of it, right, you think you really have some trust in one of them when, in fact, that's not true.

[00:27:23] Bob: The threat to turn off the electricity is a very potent threat.

[00:27:28] Monica Martinez: It's scary, right, because as you mentioned earlier on, our utilities are always working behind the scenes. We don't even notice it. I plugged my computer in this morning when I began to work, and I just expected electricity be, to be powering through to power my computer. We don't think of all those things, but if all of a sudden, I needed to make sure that I could work, or I needed to make sure that I had access to natural gas to heat my water so I could take a warm shower, those things are all very important to us. So we know that if we don't have the service, there are consequences and lifestyle issues, or maybe we can't get the necessary power to whatever medical equipment we might need that we are using at home. And all of those things are crucial. So if I'm getting told that I need to pay or it's going, I'm going to be disconnected, that's scary, and so those are the types of tactics that scammers use where we might not be taking a moment to stop and saying, wait a minute, is this real?

[00:28:38] Bob: In general, it's actually pretty hard to turn off someone's electricity, right?

[00:28:41] Monica Martinez: Yeah, that's absolutely right. It is hard to turn off someone's, you know, whether it's natural gas, electricity, or water. So there are rules to that, and with that, everyone generally has to provide notice, and usually that's notice multiple times. So you should be receiving notice, however, there are certain rules require it. It could be by mail, it could be by email, but generally it's the normal way that you communicate with that utility company. They will have to provide you notice and indicate what is happening. And many utilities, in fact, offer payment plans or other methods of service, because they realize that there are some individuals who do have difficulty paying their bill, and so they don't want to turn off someone by accident. Our utilities are generally what I would call providers of last resort. They have to be there for you. So when a termination order is entered, it's after multiple non-payments have happened, and they have rules to still try to protect that customer from the actual termination. So you're absolutely right; there are multiple communications. What we do will do is if you do receive a communication like that, we urge you just to hang up or don't pay attention to the email, and instead, look on your utility bill. Find the contact information from your utility bill and reach out and give them a call to verify. And then you will be getting the correct information.

[00:30:19] Bob: And, and I just think it's a thing if, if we want to prevent people from doing things because a criminal says it's urgent, and if we can just get it in, into people that your electricity is not going to be turned off until you've gotten a ton of notes and a ton of last notices and fees and, and whatnot. It'll, it's weeks, it's usually months before something like that really happens.

[00:30:39] Monica Martinez: Absolutely. And a lot of times there will be threats. And I think one of the words you used was the urgency, right, and it's, they try to make it seem like it's going to happen. The scammers will say your utility is going to be shut off in 30 minutes. Then that doesn't give you much time to breathe, and so we really just encourage everyone; stop, take a moment to breathe, and reexamine it.

[00:31:03] Bob: No there, there's a question we all had talking with him, um, because he genuinely was switching his energy supplier, and one theory is that the criminals just got lucky and were calling everybody and it turns out to find him, um, that seems hard to believe. It seems to me that there's one way or another that the criminals knew that he was switching his energy supplier. Is there, do you have any theory as to how that could be?

[00:31:31] Monica Martinez: More often than not when we look at the scam ecosystem, we typically find that there are trends that end up happening and the scammers are very good at knowing and figuring out those type of things based on other information. And when a scammer calls, sometimes they're able to also elicit information from you, and so that can be one of the ways that they gather that information. Other times, we see scams happening because when there are promotions or events happening, and I'll give you an example, when there's storms, sometimes we see pockets of geographic areas that are targeted for scams because they know that storm has happened. Likewise, when customers were getting upgrades, for example, for smart meters in a certain neighborhood or area, the scammers were able to figure this out, sometimes because some of that information is posted online, just this energy company is doing upgrades in this area. Sometimes it's part of news media outlets as well. And so they're able to figure out, based on a lot of other information, and so it, I'd like to call it coincidence, but it's a little bit more than coincidence on the scammer's part, because they're using a lot of public information that often helps them figure out and identify things of where companies are going through.

[00:33:08] Bob: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe a company has a promotion, a discount, or this, they're sending mailers to this zip code, and that tells them, okay, focus on this zip code for a week or so, right?

[00:33:18] Monica Martinez: Correct. Correct, and what we see with trends with our utility companies, is that things do happen pockets geographically. And it's not always the same thing, but we will see certain areas or certain regions pick up and other areas kind of die down, and maybe it's just the scammers are just rotating themselves around lists that they have, but really, we do see that happening. And so that's our best information that we can gather out of there is that they're using a lot of different points of data that are out there publicly often, and even where someone might say, yeah, I recently switched, and they don't realize, but maybe they posted it on Facebook, maybe they put information out there, and scammers are utilizing a lot of information to make their targets, unfortunately.

[00:34:16] Bob: And, and sometimes they're able to manipulate it out of someone on a phone call and, and the victim doesn't even realize it, right?

[00:34:21] Monica Martinez: That's a, another thing. It's really difficult because we hear a lot of these scams where people are divulging information and we don't mean to, right. We are human, and all of us enjoy a conversation. And sometimes a scammer can say something and just make a guess and if I were just to be like, Bob, is it sunny where you are today, and then you might respond, no, it's rainy. And then all of a sudden that becomes another point of information that they may know about you, and it's, we don't think about it just because we're engaging in that type of conversation, but all of a sudden then we're sharing points about our family or, oh yeah, maybe I did pay the bill late. I sent it by, by postal service. So maybe it got there late. And all of a sudden, the scammer's able to build off of that and be like, oh, then, yes, sometimes the postal service doesn't come in timely. You are late. And then all of a sudden, we're feeding into it and the scammer's building on top of the information that we've already given them.

[00:35:29] Bob: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

[00:35:32] Bob: Competition is a good thing, of course. But the chance to change utility providers can create confusion in some marketplaces.

[00:35:40] Bob: But uh, if, if you're like me in the last, you know, 10, 20 years or so, you started to get an awful lot of pieces of mail uh, that are maybe confusing. Um, switch your electrical provider or whatnot. Uh, and, and that seems to me to be part, part of this landscape, so can, can you tell me what's going on there?

[00:35:58] Monica Martinez: Absolutely. So what is happening is, as you can imagine, there are so many different methods of communication that customers are encountering. We're getting texts, we're getting mail, we're getting emails, we're getting pop-ups when we search on the web. So what is happening today is there are different types of energy providers or different companies that might be providing alternatives for energy services. Now generally, most of these companies are reputable. But a lot of times, as you can imagine, certain ones are, you know, they're really scammers. They're imposters. They're portraying themselves to be something that is either the utility company themselves or what we call an alternative supplier. And when that happens, that poses so many risks for customers because they may be divulging certain personal information, whether it's credit card information, banking account information, or they may also be making payments directly to these scammers in the form of gift cards. And when those things happen, we know the scammers win and customers lose.

[00:37:14] Bob: There are a whole host of utility related scams, she warns.

[00:37:21] Monica Martinez: One of the most predominant flavors that we see happening is that you haven't paid your bill. Your bill's been missed. We need to go ahead and disconnect service. And they pressure. We've seen this a lot happen to, for, to customers and to small businesses, where they're putting pressure on them and saying, I'm going to shut off immediately because of nonpayment. Another type of threat or scam that we often see is where someone's calling or reaching out, maybe by text message, indicating we need to verify your payment information because it didn't go through correctly. And so with that, it seems legitimate. Oh, I did send my bill, or I did make my payment, and I'm just providing a different additional information so that they make sure that they absolutely got it. And so they will say, I need additional information to verify your payment, and oh, can you remind me of what that payment was. I think it was 272, and then you might say, oh, well no, it was 179. And then all of a sudden, they have more information and you're maybe providing them banking information or your credit card information. And that's another thing that we do see is where there is that piece there. Additionally, we see a lot of items where people are being scammed, portraying by additional third party that might interact with utilities, just as you mentioned. There could be a third party where they are indicating that they are a solar rooftop company, an electric alternative supplier, or a charitable giving institution that are trying to help you out or make sure that you get the additional services or discounts that you might need. And so with those items, that's that third party, the portrayal of that where they're impersonating someone else trying to help you with that. So we do encourage everyone to verify, double-check, and whenever in doubt reach out to their actual utility company to see if something has changed on their end or if they are aware of those organizations.

[00:39:42] Bob: Some involve offers to help with high bills.

[00:39:46] Monica Martinez: And I want to stress, sometimes it isn't just the alternative supplier or the utility that is being impersonated. At times we've run across charities who are being impersonated, where customers are often told, I can help you pay your bill. And there are many good outstanding, wonderful organizations, non-profits throughout our, throughout our communities who do help with bill payment assistance. However, people are often imposing, pretending to be those--, that type of organization and unfortunately, they are not the real deal. We've seen instances where charitable organizations have been impersonated explaining to customers that go ahead, we'll help pay your whole bill, but we need you to get, give us a $100 payment first, and oftentimes when that happens, people see that the bigger payoff of maybe that three or four hundred dollar bill and why wouldn't you take it. It sounds a great deal, but sometimes it's too good to be true.

[00:41:01] Bob: So first and foremost, consumers should know that criminals can easily impersonate utility companies. So the best way to protect yourself is to take great care to make sure whenever you're interacting with anyone, that they really are who they say they are.

[00:41:17] Monica Martinez: So we just ask people to slow down, hang up, or do a second look. You know really do a good search and find a legitimate phone number for that organization, or contact your local utility who may help you understand whether or not you really do have a past due bill. Look at your last billing statement. That's the one reference that we always go to is check your last billing statement and get the contact information from that billing statement, or if you happen to have the mole app, get the contact information from there, to just double-check. But I do kind of urge that one of the reasons why I do express the urgency or the need to go ahead and check your past bill for the contact information; we have had instances of utility companies being impersonated online. And so we have worked closely with a lot of the search engine companies to really just try to make sure that the comp--, the name that comes up in your search result is legitimate, but sometimes they're not. We have found companies, utility companies and organizations being impersonated, and maybe the URL is just a little bit off, right, rather than .com, it might be .co, or .net, and phone number or the website might be the wrong one. So that's why we always really do encourage just to verify that, and to just double-check on some other information and communication that you may have received. Because when these scammers are out there doing it, they're maybe targeting a specific utility, and when they're doing it, they may have tried to do it multiple ways. And so, just be on alert at all times.

[00:43:11] Bob: I, I think that's really smart to pull up a bill you know is valid from the last bill you paid or whatnot. Um, for a lot of people that's going to be a, a piece of cold, hard, US or Canadian mail and you can look on there. Often now I notice online there's a phone number that says, "Call here." They're very prominent because they're aware of this. Um, so that makes a ton of sense to me. But if you're a person who opts out of mail and you get it in email, um, which is, I'm sure it's good for the environment, but it does strike me as another attack factor because now if you look at your email may--, maybe you've got an email that, that looks legitimate from a criminal, and that's what you pull up instead of your past mail, right?

[00:43:50] Monica Martinez: Absolutely, and so sometimes when you're doing that some of the tips can be to go ahead and look on the past history. Because I do, as well, receive my bill, my, my water bill from, I do get it on email alerts, but I do see a trend. So when I do a past search, I see, 15 of them pop up.

[00:44:12] Bob: Aha, yeah, sure.

[00:44:12] Monica Martinez: So that's another indicator to kind of be like, oh yeah, these are the ones that I've received, and I'm getting it once a month. So that's another way to go ahead and double-check. But to your point, when the impersonation happens, it can look very similar, and we're finding more with the scammer's probably using AI, where before the syntax would be a little bit different. We would notice more spelling errors, more grammatical errors. Those things are becoming less common because the scammers are polishing up their emails and their communications to us before they get to us. And just be on guard.

[00:44:49] Bob: Yeah, the crimes are, are looking more and more authentic. And to contradict my own point, uh certainly the scams can arrive over uh, snail mail too, right?

[00:44:58] Monica Martinez: Absolutely. For us, depending on the geographic area that someone is in, we've had scammers even come door to door for customers. Whether that's at your doorstep, and we certainly encourage individuals to be on guard. Check ID, but ID's can be forged. And even then, close the door, just say I'm going to reach out to my utility company. Feel free to give them a call. And then they will let you know whether or not there has been a service person in your area. And that's especially if someone's trying to gain access to your home or they're, again, trying to get detailed information from you at the doorstep. Those things do happen and have happened around the country. So there are, anytime where I say there are different types and different levels of communication or engagement, whether it's in person, text message, or other items, really be on guard.

[00:45:57] Bob: And here's another simple rule of thumb. No legitimate utility will ever ask you to pay with gift cards. That just never happens.

[00:46:07] Monica Martinez: One of the other things is really be on guard in terms of when you're making your payments. A lot of times people will be asking from the scammer's perspective, go buy some gift cards and then call me back with those numbers. And that is really one of the first trends that Utilities United Against Scams started noticing happening in multiple areas with multiple different utility customers, and we just call it the gift card scam. Utilities don't accept gift cards for payment, and especially when we're talking about different types of gift cards that are not even something that is issued by the utility company. They will encourage to go, to go ahead and pay by Bitcoin or MoneyPak or whatever other type of gift card there is. And utilities do not take those. So generally that's another point of to be on guard just for those type of items. If you are paying or making a payment online, generally make sure that you are doing so from the utility site or from the app, and that information and payment information is connected to their system, and then that's when they can go ahead and accept certain kinds of payment that might not be your traditional payment forms.

[00:47:29] Bob: And I, I have to ask this question because I have you here. I know that there have been circumstances where either through the mail, or in my community, not that long ago, someone came door to door, and just insinuated that things are changing so you have to sign this form so that you keep getting energy. Uh, but it was really a, a cover for switching energy providers in a confusing way. Is that something that you guys have dealt with?

[00:47:53] Monica Martinez: Um, we have seen that happen. What we just encourage individuals to do is to gather as much information as possible before signing or doing anything. That is just typical good practice. There, depending on the jurisdiction that you're in, some of those are regulated, types of service that are regulated by your local utility commission or public service commission, where those other parties can offer the additional services. And at times, some of those services are regulated maybe by your attorney general or consumer protection advocate in the state. Most of those individuals have contact information on state websites and we really do encourage individuals if there is an instance of something like that happening, to call and let someone know what happened to them.

[00:48:56] Bob: You can find a lot more on all the various types of utility scams at AARP's website. There's a great story by Deidre Van Dyke at aarp.org/utilityscams. I'll say that again. It's aarp.org/utilityscams. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:49:32] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you're not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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