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Phishing scams looking to drain the bank accounts of scores of Mississippians are now targeting utilities.
Southern Pine Electric Power Association, a rural electricity cooperative that serves 11 counties, including parts of Rankin County, has joined an ever-growing list of businesses in the state whose customers are receiving bogus requests seeking key financial information over the phone or through text messages to people posing as representatives of that company or an affiliated party.
“We’ve had one (message) say, ‘President Obama will pay your electric bill.’ Another says, ‘FEMA will pay your electric bill,’ ” says Southern Pine spokesman Dan Davis. “It could be one person (behind the scam). It could be a number of people.”
Davis said some Southern Pine customers have lost as much as several hundred dollars as a result. The cooperative temporarily suspended the use of payments by electronic checking to protect its members, a feature it hopes to restore soon.
A wave of such scams aimed at utility customers has sparked some 1,000-plus complaint calls to state officials in the last week, says Jan Schaefer, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Hood. That’s on top of hundreds of calls Hood’s office received when the scams were reaching bank customers starting in May, she said.
Hood’s office is investigating, but catching the culprits is difficult.
Roughly 400 different phone numbers, including about 50 automated numbers, from the scam artists were given to BancorpSouth by its customers, says company spokesman Randy Burchfield.
Many of these scammers conduct their operations online or by using “phished,” or stolen, phone numbers to contact customers, making it tough to track them down.
“These are often fly-by-night operations. They set up in one place and move to another place,” said Lynn Posey, a member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.
Entergy Mississippi saw a similar scam reach a number of its customers in May, and calls reporting the activity are coming again after a brief lull, says company spokeswoman Mara Hartmann.