CHICAGO (WLS) — The I-Team has a new warning about scammers threatening to turn off your electricity. Consumer Investigator Jason Knowles talked exclusively with a woman who was ripped off.
Scared her power would be shut off, a local woman lost $500 to the electric bill scam. She sent the money through a money transfer app, not once, but twice.
Now, she hopes her story stops others from falling for the scheme.
“My electricity was going to be turned off in 30 minutes unless I sent a payment. And being that I work from home, I had a bunch of conference calls coming up that day, I’m driving [and] I Instantly went into a panic,” the scam victim told the I-Team.
The victim didn’t want to show her face but said she was convinced into sending a total of $500 to a stranger through the popular money transfer app, Zelle.
“I thought I can’t be without electricity but I did ask him because it was weird to me at first. Why can I getting this call when I’m not behind on my bill but again they were very convincing,” she said. “He asked me if I pay my bill online and I told him yes, and that’s when he told me we’ve been having issues with online payments.”
First, she sent $250.
“He said, ‘It’s not enough,'” the victim recalled. “So he said, ‘This time send $251 instead of $250’. He said, ‘Write a refund in the notes,’ and when I send the $251, the $250 I sent originally will be refunded…
