by ItsMeSlinky
Received a bunch of calls from 866-582-6346, claiming to be “Richard, Tech #105 with Duke Energy” and asking me to call “Customer Service” at 877-661-1928, extension 2, to avoid having my power disconnected due to a lack of payment.
IT’S A SCAM. This scam is pretty good; when you call the number, it even has an automated voice saying “Thank you for calling Duke Energy.” The guy on the line tells you that you’re behind on your payments (apparently I owed $450+), and that a disconnect order has been issued for your address, and it’s too late to stop it. He pushes you to go to one of their local branches and make a payment immediately to avoid having your service disconnected.
I logged into Duke Energy’s website, looked at my own account and billing history, and they didn’t line up at all with what this guy was saying. He did a clever little bit of acting where he put me on hold to “try and verify the account information” and came back saying while he was sure this was all a big misunderstanding, he had to go by what the account was showing on his screen. He put me on “hold” again to try and contact the tech to see if he could postpone my power disconnection. Sadly, it was too late to reschedule and I would need to make an immediate payment. How I caught him was the addresses he gave me for local payments didn’t match the official listings from Duke Energy on the websites; the businesses and addresses he listed (he gave me three or four) weren’t listed at all.
These guys were pretty quick on their feet and did a lot of decent acting to sell it and make it sound official. But my spidey-sense was tingling so I told him I’d call him back, hung up, and called Duke Energy through the number on my actual bill.
Sure enough, my account was just fine, and the nice lady from Duke informed me that the company will NEVER call out like that to collect payment, and that it was 100% a scam.
I’m in Florida, but I’m sure they have other numbers with other power companies listed. Don’t fall for it!