SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Scams targeting San Diego Gas & Electric customers are on the rise, the utility said Tuesday, with fraudsters posing as SDG&E representatives, threatening to shut off victims’ power and demanding payments over the phone.
SDG&E says customer reports of scams have roughly tripled from March to April of this year.
The utility says it does not demand payments over the phone, though scammers will often warn callers of imminent power shutdowns if payments are not made immediately. Commonly targeted victims include restaurant owners, small businesses, homeowner associations, the elderly, and limited-English speakers.
Some examples of prevalent scams include fraudulent callers warning victims that their account is delinquent and will be shut down within the hour pending payment.
SDG&E says customers will be asked to pay via Bitcoin, Zelle, Green Dot debit cards, or other non-traditional forms of payment that it does not use. One local business targeted in this fashion lost more than $25,000, the utility said, as the victim was told to continually repeat a transaction that supposedly failed to go through multiple times.
The scammers also utilize caller ID spoofing, which allows their calls to appear to originate from numbers with 619, 858, or 760 area codes, despite the fact that many such schemes are based outside of the country, according to SDG&E.
“The scammers…
