Powerful Living Dialing for
New twists on telephone scams target electric co-op members
By Mary Logan-Wolf T
here’s a sucker born every minute, or so the saying goes. Before you excuse yourself from the ranks of those who know better, consider the criteria: Ac-
cording to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s offi ce, answering your phone is all it takes for your telephone number—and you—to wind up on what international con artists refer to as “the sucker list.” That list is a hot commodity in the shady world of online racketeers looking to score a fast buck, Julie Bays, chief assistant attorney general, says. “Those telephone numbers are bought and sold
again and again,” she says. “Even if a scammer fails to dupe the victim, that person is likely to receive three to four more calls within a 48-hour period.” It happened to Tri-County Electric Cooperative
(TCEC) members Lowell and Jennifer Williams of Guymon, Okla., in December 2015. According to Jennifer, she answered the phone at the cou- ple’s convenience store and a man claiming to be from “their electric company fi nancial depart- ment” said they must pay a past-due balance or their electricity would shut off within the hour. Members of the co-op for 29 years, the Williamses have never been disconnected for lack of pay- ment. Still, Jennifer says she almost fell for the scam on the fi rst call. Feeling something wasn’t right, she asked the
caller for his number and told him she would call him back.
“I hung up the phone and thought, ‘That’s a scam,’” Jennifer says.
Before she had time to report the call to her co-op, the phone rang again. It was a different man who claimed to be the supervisor of the fi - nancial department. This time, she told the caller she knew it was a scam and quickly hung up. They called again. After the third attempt, she reported the incident to TCEC, which quickly confi rmed her suspicions. Amazingly, the scammers called the next day and tried the same tactic on Jennifer’s
6 DOLLARS
more gullible person at the same number. It’s a dilemma, Bays admits.
“I mean, how do you not answer your phone?”
“Even if a scammer fails to dupe the victim, that person is likely to receive three to four more calls within a 48-hour period.”
48 - Julie Bays, chief assistant attorney general
she says. Depending on age, upbringing, even cultural differences, many people fi nd it nearly impossi- ble to ignore a persistent ring.
“Elderly residents are particularly vulnerable.
To them, answering the phone is a common courtesy,” she adds. As a safeguard, Bays suggests using caller I.D.,
voice mail, or an answering machine to screen calls.
“If you don’t recognize the telephone num-
ber, don’t answer the phone,” she says. If the caller leaves a message saying they are
husband to no avail.
“It doesn’t matter if the scam succeeded or not,” Bays reiterates. “What matters is the person an- swered their phone.”
Once this happens, the telephone number is
classifi ed as “live.” For opportunistic crooks, a live list is a goldmine rich with potential victims. Utility scam failed to net a buck? Not to worry; within 24 hours, thieves will sell your number to the next con artist with a new approach or, as the Williamses experienced, they’ll keep up the same ruse hoping to wear you down or perhaps reach a
from your utility company or some other known entity and asks you to call them back at a certain number or tells you to visit a website, don’t fol- low through until you’ve verified the information. “I always tell people to go to their last state- ment and call the number or visit the website printed on that bill,” she says. Bays admits, however, that even caller I.D. isn’t failsafe. “Nowadays, it’s very easy to make a telephone call look like it is coming from a local utility company,” she says. The guise, known as “spoofi ng,” applies to websites and email, too. Both forms of commu- nication are easily copied to fool consumers into giving up their credit card numbers and other personal information. Another technique known as “vishing” uses a combination of voice and Internet technologies to extract money from unsuspecting victims. Last year, thieves tried to scam a member of Ozarks Electric Cooperative by mimicking the co-op’s Interactive Voice Recording (IVR). “We think they listened to ours,” says Derek
Redfearn, manager of member relations for the Fayetteville, Ark.,-based co-op that serves mem- bers in Oklahoma. According to Redfearn, the crooks left a
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