FARMINGTON – Police are trying to make the community aware of a scam that targeted a local business today, with the scammers taking the identity of a utility company threatening to shut off the power.
According to Farmington Police Chief Jack Peck, a male caller contacted the business owner and claimed to work for Central Maine Power. The caller said that if the owner did not pay a certain amount of money, the electricity would be shut off.
The business owner sent an unspecified amount of money. Later he called CMP and verified that his account was in fact paid in full.
CMP told the owner that a live person would not call with a disconnect notice in such a manner.
Why do people, businessmen, etc continue to fall for this stuff. With all the telemarketers and scammers I do nothing with an unknown person on the phone.
Are the police talking about CMP?
Never give anyone your credit card number over the phone. Say “I’m busy right now I will call back”. Then find your bill and call the number on the bill. Do not call back the number they give you. This scam happens every single year and has been going on for years. The next one to hit will be people claiming to be the IRS.
I’ve gotten a couple of calls recently, people saying they are “the utility company” and asking if I am the person who is responsible for paying the electric bill. You can hang up, or tell them a billion times to be put on the Do Not Call list and they will still call. Scammers, spammers, and facebook cloners, they’re all nothing but low-down schemers.
There are scam artist everywhere. Yesterday I received an automated phone call on my cell saying they were from the Wellcare Insurance Group. And they had a question for me about my insurance. All i needed to do was verify a few things. To make sure i was the correct me. The recording was very professional sounding but after hearing about all of the scsms i. Didn’t respond when it asked me my date of birth. It waited a few seconds and repeted the request for my date of birth. I then gave a very large piece of my mind to the machine that may or may not have had some colorful words incorperated in it. And hung up. I call my Wellcare Insurance company and told them about the call. They said it was not them. So be carefull …. There are crooks out there!
I’ve stopped answering the phone. My machine takes all my calls and most robocalls don’t talk to a machine. I don’t trust my caller ID anymore. If the caller speaks and is someone I know and want to talk to, I pick it up. Saves me a lot of trouble. If somebody is offended that I don’t answer myself, I’m sorry, but times have changed.
Also my cell phone is a burner from WalMart that is only on if I need to make calls if I’m away from home. Try it.
People are so gullible.