In early January, I wrote a post about utility impostors. These impostors are people who call or email you to demand payment for a past-due bill—a bill that you never received. That’s where this post comes in. What if you do receive a utility bill, but the bill is from a different company or the information on the bill is different from normal?
On Friday, January 24, the Ohio Attorney General’s office announced that scammers were attempting to extort money by sending bills to Ohio residents from PG&E. Anyone who lives in Ohio knows that PG&E doesn’t provide service in that state, but there may still be people who fall for the scam.
Another utility whose name has been used in scams is Dallas-based Atmos Energy. In fact, a friend sent me a copy of the bill he received via email. The company provides service to more than three million natural gas customers in eight states from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Rocky Mountains, but they do not provide service in California, which is where the utility bill in question surfaced.
If the scammers ever figure out how to target these fake bills to the actual service areas of the companies they’re impersonating, identifying a fake bill will become much more difficult. However, there will always be a few ways to ensure you don’t fall victim to this scam.
- Does the bill have your name and billing address printed correctly?
- Is the account number the same as the one your utility gave you?
- Do links in the emailed bill lead to the correct website? To find out, don’t click the link, just rest your mouse over the link. Better yet, ignore the links in the email and go directly to the company’s website where you can log in to look up your account.
By the way, have you ever wondered how someone would create a fake utility bill? It took less than five minutes for me to find multiple websites where you can download or create “fake utility bills.” Why anyone would need a fake bill for legitimate purposes is beyond me, but we’ll go with that option being available. The bottom line is that the bill you receive, even it’s a fake, will look real.
