JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — We’re following up on a wave of scam calls JEA customers are receiving.
When those unsuspecting customers pick up, the person on the other side demands they pay up within half an hour and threatens to cut off their power if they don’t.
Within the past four weeks, JEA says it has received 71 calls from customers reporting potential scam calls, with 66 of those reports in just the last week.
One of those customers told Action News Jax why, like so many, he felt safe picking up the phone call in the first place.
He said it was because he saw JEA’s main number on his caller ID 904-665-6000.
He caught on soon that it wasn’t JEA at all. JEA warns that this is actually a common strategy.
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Back in July, this JEA customer who wanted to remain anonymous got an unnerving call, telling him he hadn’t paid his bill.
“They did give me the exact amount of what I owed, so I thought that was kind of odd,” he said. “They were asking for a credit card.”
Then they added to the pressure by telling him, “We need you to pay immediately or we’re gonna disconnect you in 24 to 48 hours,” he recalled.
However, his account was already paid. “I know I paid it because I could log in and immediately see that it was paid,” he pointed out.
So he quickly realized exactly what this was. “Scam. 100% percent scam,” he said.
