In the face of increasingly sophisticated scam calls, utility companies are calling on their customers to stay alert.

Scammers are calling customers posing as a utility provider and threaten service interruption unless an immediate payment is made. They usually ask for payment through pre-pay credit card or a money wire service.

Utilities never threaten to shut service off without several prior warnings, and will never ask for immediate payment by phone.

Jody Gillaspie is Director of Consumer Protection in the Office of the South Dakota Attorney General. She says scammers look at the weather to predict when people will be indoors and more likely to be worried about their AC or heat shutting off. Extreme temperatures mean more reports of scams.

 

Gillaspie says scammers have been getting better at what they do in the past five or six years.

Gillaspie says the majority of scam calls come from India, which makes tracking them down difficult. Investigations of foreign scams are conducted by federal authorities, but even they have a tough time—scammers are constantly changing locations and phone numbers.