Businesses targeted in DP&L scam

Scam artists are calling some Dayton Power and Light customers telling them they must immediately pay their bill, or their utility service will be disconnected, company officials said.

A Dayton business owner said it happened to him on Monday.

“I can honestly say that I never thought that I would ever fall for a scam. I didn’t fall for this, but for the first couple of minutes I was on board,” Dublin Pub co-owner Steve Tieber said.

“The caller had several layers of authenticity and convincibility, but a gut feeling had me asking a lot of questions.”

“Recently, DP&L has seen an increase in this type of fraudulent collection activity. We have seen an increase among business customers,” said Mary Ann Kabel, DP&L director of communications.

The scammers may tell the customer that the DP&L payment system is down and that they must go buy a Green Dot card to make the payment, a DP&L release stated.

A Green Dot Money Pak card is what consumers can purchase to send money, reload pre-paid debit cards, add money to PayPal and Ebay accounts, and make bill payments, according to the Money Pak website.

Two cases of this scam have been reported to police in the last two weeks, according to Dayton Police Sgt. Rhonda Williams.

“We usually get them in clusters and that seems like that is what is getting ready to happen,” Williams said.

Kabel added whenever consumers get a phone call claiming to be from the utility company, they should keep these things in mind:

• DP&L will not ask for bank information or credit card numbers over the phone.

• DP&L will not email customers or call them and threaten to disconnect service if they do not pay their bill immediately.

• DP&L will never require that people pay their bill using a specific method.

• DP&L also recommends deleting any emails from utilities that are not from a person’s service provider, and delete any emails that require immediate action or personal information.

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