The Better Business Bureau of West Michigan and Consumers Energy are warning business owners of the latest phone scam. Consumers spokesperson Roger Morgenstern tells WSJM News with this one, someone calls a business claiming to represent the utility and claiming a bill is past due. They say the business will have its service shut off if they don’t pay up, usually with a wire transfer or a pre-paid card, quickly. Morgenstern says Consumers Energy will not do that.
“We have a very detailed past due collections system which involves sending several letters, and it will have a shutoff date on those letters,” Morgenstern said. “We don’t just call people out of the blue and say we’re going to shut off their power.”
Morgenstern notes lower level employees of many smaller businesses will take the call, and several have fallen for it. Scammers have managed to get around $52,000 from their victims in 2019 with the incidents reported in Allegan, Kent, and Kalamazoo counties. Anyone who gets such a call should hang up and call the utility directly.
