Customer notice
Portland General Electric (PGE) wants to alert you about an ongoing telephone scam. Thieves posing as PGE employees ask customers to purchase a pre-paid credit card to collect a past-due bill – in many cases targeting customers who aren’t past due. This fraud is being reported at PGE and at utilities nationwide, and they’re working with local authorities to investigate. You may have received notice from them about this fraud earlier in the year – because it has continued, they are reaching out again.
Please help spread the alert
This scam has especially targeted small-business owners for whom English is a second language. They ask for your help in spreading the word to those businesses, as well as to your colleagues, customers and business groups.
How the scam works
The caller states the customer’s electric bill is past due, and the customer must pay immediately or power will be disconnected.
The scammer then directs customers to purchase a pre-paid “Green Dot” credit card and to call back with the card number. In some cases, the caller arranges to call back to get the credit card number. In either case, this is not PGE’s practice for collecting past-due accounts.
It is important to know that PGE employees will never ask customers to buy a pre-paid credit card to pay a bill. Live PGE employees do not accept payment over the phone. PGE only accepts telephone payments using their automated telephone payment system.
If you are targeted by this scam or suspicious about a caller, hang up and call PGE Customer Service at 800-542-8818 and then report it to local police.
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