The number of fraud-related complaints Manitoba Hydro received this year is 5 per cent more than last year, which is a sign more customers are getting bogus e-mails and texts attempting to scam them out of their money.
904 text and e-mail scam complaints have been filed, up from 862 last year.
The 5 per cent increase to last year’s scam numbers is a lot less than the 300 per cent jump 2018 saw compared to 2017 when only 221 complaints were made.
This year, text and e-mail scams made up 87 per cent of all scams, phone and at-the-door sales are the other 13 per cent.
In a press release, Chris McColm, Manitoba Hydro’s Security and Investigations Supervisor, says scammers are finding new ways to trick people.
“Increasingly phone scammers pose as utility providers and insist customers — usually small businesses during busy hours — are delinquent on their bills and risk disconnection if they don’t pay immediately. They typically ask for payment in the form of a prepaid debit card. These scammers also rig caller ID to make it look like the call is from Manitoba Hydro, and have even mimicked our automated phone system so the recordings and prompts are similar to Manitoba Hydro’s.”
Manitoba Hydro will make reminder phone calls to customers who are in arrears, and they’ll request payment to prevent disconnection of service.
However, they don’t make last-minute threats, request specific payment types like prepaid debit cards, accept payments over the phone, or ask customers to wire money.
To protect yourself against the scams, never purchase a prepaid card to avoid service disconnection or shutoff because legitimate utility companies don’t specify how to make a bill payment and offer a variety of ways to pay a bill. If someone threatens immediate disconnection or shutoff of service, hang up the phone, delete the text or e-mail, or shut the door because companies never send a single notification one hour or less before disconnection, and if a customer suspects someone is trying to scam them, they should hang up, delete the e-mail or text, or shut the door, call Manitoba Hydro at 1-888-624-9376 or message Manitoba Hydro on Facebook and Twitter, not the phone number the scammer provides.
