By Bradley Warren
Nov. 5, Volume 47 Issue 2
In recent weeks scammers have been calling Spokane residents posing as Avista Utilities employees to swindle Avista customers out of their money. These scammers will take your money and your identity if you don’t know the steps to take to protect yourself.
Scammers from around the country call unsuspecting victims in Spokane posing as Avista representatives telling them they need to pay their overdue bill via the phone or their power will be turned off. Avista has released a statement that this is not how they go about collecting overdue bills and this is a scam.
“Scammers are using spoofing technology to make it look like they are calling from Avista” Avista senior communications manager Debbie Simock said.
She said that these scammers are sometimes “abrasive and aggressive”, “the scammers ask you to buy a prepaid debit card or a green dot card to make a payment with over the phone,” says Simock. Since these cards are not traceable once you give out your card number your money is gone for good.
According to Simock, the scammers are calling at random and there is no order to who they contact. these Scammers prey off the uninformed and college students, since most are on there own for the first time the may not have the tools they need to know whats fact or a scam.
Ashley Strack, a SFCC student and first time Avista bill payer knows all about the scams. “I’ve heard a few different stories about people trying to scam customers pretending to claim to be Avista,” Strack said. “Yes we deal with people trying to scam the members at my work all the time so I know what some of the calls sound like.” Strack said.
“It wasn’t scary paying my bill for the first time I always made sure it was paid well in advance,” Strack said.
This is a good thing to do to keep yourself in the know on the status of your bill, paying ahead of time will keep you in the know so that you can’t be scammed. Simock says that there are steps Avista takes before turning your power off and a phone call asking for immediate payment over the phone is not one of them.
The first step in this process is that you will receive a notice in the mail on your bill and it will be clearly marked if your are overdue.
If you do not follow up with Avista they will send you a second letter if at that point you have still not followed up Avista will call you from a 1800 number with a automated message for you to listen to, after that point if there is still no action on your end Avista will begin the process of turning your power off.
But Simock wants you to know that it’s the last thing they want to do is turn your power off. Avista has many programs in place to help you out and are “willing to work with customers,” Simock said.
If you think you have been scammed the best thing to do is report it to Avista at 1-800-227-9187. If you get one of these scammer calls and feel “uncomfortable on the phone, terminate the call immediately and report it to Avista.”