DECATUR, Ala. — Tis' the season for holiday scams; as more leaves fall, more scams take place.
Recently, Joe Wheeler EMC out of Decatur posted this message to their Facebook Page:
SCAM Caller Notice:
We have had a few members call to let us know there is someone calling in our area claiming to be from the "Power Company" and threatening to cut off power if payment is not made within 30 minutes. JWEMC does not make calls like this and would never identify ourselves as "The Power Company." Please, if you get a call like this, hang up and call 256-552-2300 to let us know.
"You know, people and their busy days, they do make mistakes sometimes so they'll, they'll think, oh, did I forget to send that? Did I forget to do that? Did I hit the wrong button somewhere?" said Director of Communications with JWEMC, Michael Cornelison.
Not only did the utility company say they would never address themselves as "the power company' they also said they would probably never call you...
"As a rule, we generally don't contact members for late payments but if somebody ever does contact you from Joe Wheeler EMC, they're going to know, you know, specific identifying information when they call and so they shouldn't be hard to identify as a Joe Wheeler employee," said Cornelison.
If you do receive a call and get that gut feeling that something isn't right, Cornelison says you should call them, "If there's any doubt at all, just give us a call."
These scammers also try to convince people to pay through weird methods, to make the crime less traceable, but no legitimate company would ever ask you to pay through the means of something like a pre-paid gift card.
"If somebody from Joe Wheeler was to call somebody, they're not going to take payment there. They're going to- you're going to have to call into the office to make payments anyway or get on the app or come to one of the kiosk or come into the office," said Cornelison. "You know, there's several different ways or do it online. And there's several different ways that we can take payments, but it's never going to be, 'we require you to go get a prepaid card and call them back.' That's- that's never going to be a thing."