I have had some scam calls that are so well done it's amazing. One was that my power was going to be turned off because I hadn't paid to have my meter upgraded and if it was disconnected it would take up to 48 hours to be restored. Well the power company is upgrading meters in this area...but I rent, so I told the guy I hadn't received a notice and it would probably be my landlords responsibility. He said it's the responsibility of the person who receives the bill and the notices were in with the bills for the last 6 months. All sounds legit...then he says he can't take a payment over the phone, I have to go to one of the stores that accepts utility payments and gives me a couple local addresses. If I do that and have proof of payment when the truck arrives to disconnect I'll be OK....and here's the kicker the caller ID is the power company's phone number. So I call. and it is the power company,and I speak to a rep who tells me it's a scam and yes they use the real phone number. I google the addresses he gave me to go pay, they're bogus. Phone rings again, it's him wanting to know if I had the receipt because the truck was almost there. I said no and he was bogus, he said "Just look at the caller ID you'll see I am from the company" and I said yea, the company told me that was the scam...and he hung up. After I thought about, I was trying to figure out how it paid off. I think the key is he calls back well before he knows you would have had time to drive anywhere. Then he''l say something about making an exception for taking a credit card over the phone...and come to think of it, would the utility charge to upgarde a meter, probably not.
