UPDATE – Dominion Energy spokeswoman Bonita Billingsley Harris says the company has investigated Otani Williams’ case. “As we suspected, it’s the same as with all of the cases we’ve investigated. The scam artist did not have an exact account balance. It was close, but as you know, you can get close with a guess. They did not have any confidential information about her from Dominion Energy. Former addresses and former names are often available with a simple Google search.” Billingsley Harris says Dominion’s system was not hacked.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — People in Hampton Roads continue to be tricked out of their money by a persistent scam involving power bills.
They’re getting calls from someone claiming to be from Dominion Energy telling them their service will be disconnected if they don’t pay money immediately.
“Welcome to Dominion Energy. This is an automated call to inform you that your account reflects a disconnection order.” — that’s from a voicemail Otani Williams, a Virginia Beach resident, received last Thursday.
“It sounded authentic, it sounded as if it was an actual voicemail from Dominion,” Williams said.
She had recently moved and thought there might truly be something wrong with her account. The bogus message made it sound very urgent.
“We have two trucks out now, in your area, so to avoid that we need you to go ahead and make payment today,” the message said.
They wanted her to pay with a Green Dot MoneyPak.
They wanted her to pay $310 dollars, which happened to be her current balance with Dominion, using a Green Dot MoneyPak. Finally, they convinced her to go to a Walgreens and she paid them the money, wanting to keep the lights on for her and her 6-year-old child.
Williams called them back to check her account several days later and the scammers got more greedy. This time they had a different fake story.
“We’re switching out the meters in your area – you didn’t get the letters that we sent?” the scammers claimed.
They wanted Williams to pay them more money, but this time she didn’t. She says the scammers seemed legitimate because they knew her maiden name, her balance with Dominion and even her previous address.
Williams says she filed a fraud report with Dominion and Green Dot MoneyPak to see if she can get her money back, but doubts she will.
Dominion spokeswoman Bonita Billingsley Harris says the company is hearing from hundreds of its customers regarding this scam, and says Dominion will never threaten to disconnect someone if they don’t pay their bill.
“We have alerted customers about these terrible scams targeting energy companies through multiple sources of communication — letters, online notices, social media and interviews with mainstream media,” Harris said.
“We’ve seen them get increasingly sophisticated and more and more common. Sometimes they program their phones so the caller id says ‘Dominion Energy.’ If someone calls claiming to be from Dominion Energy, saying your service is about to be disconnected, hang up.”
The only customer service number Dominion will use is 1-866-DOM-HELP.