PG&E is warning consumers of a new scam where customers are told their service will be disconnected unless they pay up via a barcode or QR code that is sent to them by email or a text.
So far this year scam victims have lost more than $211,000, with 399 reports coming from Alameda County and 278 in Contra Costa County, according to a Local News Matter report.
Here’s how it happens: After a scammer calls a customer, they send them a payment code. The customer is then told to take it to a store and make a payment.
“If you receive a call of this nature, hang up. If someone at your door asks to see your utility bill, close the door. Then, call our 800 number (1-833-500-SCAM) or log into your account at PGE.com to verify your billing details,” said PG&E lead scam investigator Matt Foley in a statement.
Signs of a potential scam
- Threat to disconnect: Scammers may aggressively demand immediate payment for an alleged past due bill.
- Asking to see your bill: If someone comes to your home and asks to see your bill, they are not with PG&E.
- Request for immediate payment via prepaid debit card or money transfer service: Scammers may instruct the customer to purchase a prepaid debit card then call them back supposedly to make a bill payment, or they may ask for payment via a money transfer service.
- Refund or rebate offers: Scammers may say that your utility company overbilled you and owes you a refund, or that you are entitled to a rebate, and then ask you for your banking information. — Source: PG&E
Foley reminds customers that PG&E will never ask customers for financial information over the phone or for payment via a barcode, a QR code or pre-paid debit cards or money transfer services such as Zelle, and no one will come to your door asking to see a bill.
The average loss per-victim was $969, PG&E said, though many incidents go unreported.
Scammers are also targeting small- and medium-sized businesses, with 656 cases reported this year, PG&E said.
Customers who suspect that they have been victims of fraud are told to contact their local police department.
This is a good article. ‘Thanks! Everyone should beware of QR codes, no matter where they are. QR codes sidestep California privacy laws about the right to opt out of selling your personal information because the phone owner “voluntarily” scans them, thereby “agreeing to accept all cookies.”
Any QR code is 99.99% likely to place a tracking pixel on every phone that scans it. That tracking pixel sees and passes on everything that phone owner does with the phone, and may worm its way into every text, every email, every person in the list of contacts to infect their phones, as well. This is all for the purpose of tracking and selling personal info to spammers/fraudsters.
My advice: NEVER scan any QR code for any reason.
P.S. Google already does this and pays hundreds of $$$thousands, even $$$ millions in government fines every year for doing it; but– the privacy law has no penalties against Google officers, no prison time, no cease & desist orders, just monetary fines. Google is happy to pay those and keep on making more money by selling its users’ & all their contacts’, info to “marketing companies”.
Google is just following BMW’s lead. BMW cars never met US standards for air pollution emissions, but, again, the only penalty was monetary fines, which BMW gladly paid to keep on selling cars in the USA. They did this so long, think decades, that the Biden administration finally put teeth in the law & spoiled BMW’s little game, to some extent, but no one has yet stopped Google or QR code tracking & marketing.