Scammers have reportedly begun targeting Lakewood homes, shuls, and businesses by claiming they are calling from utility company JCP&L, saying that the home or organization is delinquent in their electric bill payments, and demanding personal information and payment, or else they will shut off the electric.
One such incident occurred Thursday in Lakewood, in which a local shul was called by the scammers. Thankfully, the individual who picked up the phone quickly realized that the call was a scam and hung up.
While with most scams, the people who are affected are generally elderly people or those with limited knowledge about how scams work, the number shown on the called ID when these scammers call is a 732 number, lending them more credibility and possibly causing more people to believe they are legitimately from JCP&L.
As always, keep in mind that utility companies – and nearly every legitimate company or governmental agency – will never request personal information over the phone, and they most likely won’t call you in the first place; almost all official communication is done either by email or physical mail.
If you know of someone who may be vulnerable to the scam outlined above, or to any other scam, please take a minute to educate them on how to avoid falling for these thieves and their nefarious claims.
I got a call today from the “IRS”, and I dealt with them how I always do with scams. I told her she owes me $3000- for each time she tries to scam me. Of course she hung up on me! If they stay on the phone long enough, I ask them to meet me in front of Walmart with the cash!
This happened to me a few months ago! I got a call that if I don’t pay my electric bill in 30 minutes they will turn off my power. I actually believed them and thought my husband had forgotten to pay the bills. Thankfully they had a bad connection and I hung up, called back JCP&L and realized it had been a scam.
There are people out there are scamming you on phone and on your cellphone and they are asking your for money and threaten you that your power will be shut off and they will threaten you that someone in your family will be in jail or killed!!! Do me favor hang up phone immediately and take their number down block them immediately!!! Call the Electric company or whoever they mentioned threat you !!!