Victim Location 20132
Type of a scam Utility
The caller stated that they were calling from Dominion Power about unpaid electric bills that needed to be paid immediately or our electricity would be shut off. They left the phone number 844-675-3461. Since I knew we had no unpaid bills, I did not return the call immediately, completed my business day and decided at 5:30PM to try to return the call. My first hint that something was fishy was that I only had to answer one automated response question and I was immediately sent to a real person. The person asked for my full Dominion account number and I said normally Dominion can pull my information up from the phone number I was calling from. The second hint that something was wrong was when they asked for my phone number (which they should have been able to see if it was really Dominion) and unfortunately I gave them my cell phone number. The man said he could not pull anything up and he kept pressing me for my full account number. That’s when I realized he was trying to scam me. I asked him if he was really Dominion Power and he replied yes. I then asked him why he called my office phone number about power bills when that phone number is not on record as a contact number with Dominion power? He had no reply and I hung up. I then checked The Dominion Electric website and found that the customer service number is 866-366-4357 and there are no live humans taking calls about billing after 5PM. Although I did not let the scammer ask me for credit card information he was attempting to commit fraud by saying that I had outstanding power bills that would result in our electricity being turned off. He was trying to scare me into paying non exsistent bills and I want to make sure that someone out there who may have an actual outstanding bill will be taken advantage of by these scam artists.