Be aware of scams targeting co-op members

Please be aware of an emerg­ing online scam tar­get­ing co-op mem­bers. The Nation­al Rur­al Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Asso­ci­a­tion (NRECA) pub­lished a sto­ry ear­li­er this week about scam­mers who are hijack­ing search engine results and imper­son­at­ing elec­tric coop­er­a­tives to inter­cept mem­bers’ cred­it card infor­ma­tion.

The NRECA sto­ry was about Ten­nessee elec­tric co-ops, but it appears at least two South Car­oli­na co-ops have been tar­get­ed as well.

At this week’s Co-op IT Sum­mit, one South Car­oli­na coop­er­a­tive report­ed that a mem­ber did a Google search for the co-op and called the num­ber that was list­ed. The per­son who answered the phone offered a $20 dis­count if the mem­ber paid their pow­er bill over the phone. Odd­ly enough, the scam­mer actu­al­ly paid the member’s bill for them, pos­si­bly to buy time to use the member’s cred­it card infor­ma­tion for some­thing else.

Ten­nessee co-ops filed com­plaints with the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion and FBI’s Inter­net Crime Com­plaint Cen­ter. They also issued guid­ance to their mem­bers mak­ing them aware of this issue.

Here are some ways to protect yourself:

• Be care­ful when search­ing online for your elec­tric coop­er­a­tive. Crim­i­nals may place fake web­sites and phone list­ings at the top of search engine results to steal your pay­ment infor­ma­tion.
• Don’t rely on search engine results. Access our web­site by typ­ing our web address direct­ly into your brows­er: yorkelectric.net.
• Call YEC 803–684-4248.
• Be skep­ti­cal of any­one offer­ing dis­counts or incen­tives for pay­ing quick­ly or over the phone.
• Hang up and call the co-op direct­ly if some­thing doesn’t feel right.

Scam Web­site Imper­son­ates Elec­tric Providers, Col­lects Cus­tomer Mon­ey