The Better Business Bureau serving Central and Eastern Kentucky is warning of a phone scam targeting local businesses.
According to BBB officials, the caller claims to be a representative of Kentucky Utilities, telling the business owner that the power would be shut off immediately if the electric bill was not paid.
“These businesses also said that when they called back numbers left by the scammers, the voice greeting sounded exactly the same as the real Kentucky Utilities greeting,” BBB officials stated.
KU states on its website that the company would never call to demand payment or ask for a credit/debit card number, or any other personal information.
“If you ever get a call threatening to shut off your power if you don’t provide that information, it’s a scam,” the website states.
The BBB offered the following tips to business owner/operators to avoid being scammed:
- Require all employees, including temps and interns, to pass along any mailed, emailed or phone demands for payments of any kind to an employee designated to deal with those.
- Train staffers who answer the phones to NEVER agree to any kind of supply shipments, “yellow page”/directory listings, etc. Con artists like to call during lunch or during early and late operating hours when supervisors may not be available and less experienced staff might be on phone duty.
- Check out any solicitations from new vendors or other services with your BBB before entering into any agreements. You can do this at www.bbb.orgor by calling (859) 259-1008 or 1-800-866-6668.
- If your business is the victim of a scam, please report it to BBB. We can try to help with the problem, and warn others!
The public can report scams to BBB Scam Tracker at www.bbb.org/scamtracker.
