SaskPower is seeing an increase in the sophistication and frequency of scams involving their company in the past week.
But scammers are doing something new by requesting payment through crypto currency, like bitcoin.
“This is not something that we would ever do but something they want to do because it’s untraceable,” says Jonathan Tremblay with SaskPower.
As with previous scams, scammers have been contacting residents through phone, email, and text messages saying that bills are overdue and threatening to cut power to the residence.
This is not how SaskPower, as with other utility operations, operates.
“SaskPower will never ask you to purchase pre-paid payment cards or crypto currency (like bitcoin), or give credit card information over the phone (and) we never send financial transactions through text messaging, email or social media,” said the www.saskpower.com website.
If anyone does receive a request for information from SaskPower, they should be wary of the person at the other end and not to click any links, whether they are in a text, email, or on a webpage.
While SaskPower would like to hear feedback from customers, they will never use online pop-up ads or pop-up surveys, said the website.
Spelling of URLs are an obvious indicator of a scam site with a slight change of spelling allowing scammers to impersonate a site.
“The impersonating website can even look like ours, but the links within can be harmful. Being on an imposter site doesn’t mean your computer has been compromised, but we recommend you keep your antivirus software updated to be sure.”
No matter what kind of scam, SaskPower emphasizes the importance of hanging up and reporting the incident to both the organization and Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1(888)495-8501.
If people do become a victim of fraud, the RCMP gives these steps on their Scams and Fraud webpage, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams-fraudes.
What to do if you are a victim:
Step 1: Gather all information about the fraud. This includes documents, receipts, copies of emails and/or text messages.
Step 2: Report the incident to your local police. This ensures that they are aware of which scams are targeting their residents and businesses. Keep a log of all your calls and record all file or occurrence numbers.
Step 3: Contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Step 4: Report the incident to the financial institution where the money was sent (e.g., money service business such as Western Union or MoneyGram, bank or credit union, credit card company or internet payment service provider).
Step 5: If the fraud took place online through Facebook, eBay, a classified ad such as Kijiji or a dating website, be sure to report the incident directly to the website. These details can be found under “report abuse” or “report an ad.”
Step 6: Victims of identity fraud should place flags on all their accounts and report to both credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion.
