Action 9: Duke Energy leads fight against scammers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke Energy is leading a national fight against con artists who pretend to be with a utilities company, tell customers they owe money and then threaten to shut off power if they don’t pay right away.

The energy giant, based in Charlotte, formed a coalition called Utilities United Against Scams.  Duke is lining up utilities to warn customers. It has more than 40 companies so far across the U.S. and Canada on board.

Duke's V.P. of Revenue Services, Jared Lawrence, said victims lost $600,000 to scammers since last summer, and those are just the ones Duke knows about.

"It bothers me to the core," Lawrence said.

He founded the coalition that will warn millions of customers of the scams through news reports, paid ads, alerts on bills, automated messages and social media.

"Just basically unleash a barrage of posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter," Lawrence said.

Starting Tuesday, Duke will call every one of its business customers in six states and email 2 million customers.

The plan worked in Indiana, where Duke saw a huge flare-up one month, used the barrage, and had almost zero cases the next two months.

"It really is heart-wrenching that people continue to fall for [the scam]," he said.  "Our goal is that a year from now, when we are visiting on the successes and lessons learned from the campaign, we look at our statistics and see that nobody's falling for this anymore and we don't need to have this collaborative anymore.  That's our goal."

Duke impostors targeted the French Quarter Tavern three times over the past year. They threatened to shut the power during the lunch rush if the restaurant didn't pay more than $1,000.

"’Your power's going to be cut off in an hour.'  I was like, 'What do you mean cut off in hour?  I've got a full house,'" said manager Angelo Tsepelis.”

French Quarter didn't fall for the scam because a lot of Duke employees eat there and warned the business in person. French Quarter is now warning others.

Action 9 reveals two indicators that the call is from a scammer:

1. Your utility will never shut your power the first time it tells you owe money.
2. Your utility will never tell you how to pay.  So, if the caller demands prepaid debit cards or iTunes gift cards, it's a con.

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