Waterloo North Hydro warns about telephone scam
Posted Jul 17, 2014 11:33:35 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A telephone scam has already hit areas of Ontario like Toronto and Thunder Bay and local electric utilities want to make sure it doesn’t happen to customers right here in the region.
Jeff Quint is the manager of energy conservation and corporate communications with Waterloo North Hydro. He says that customers in other parts of the province have received calls from an 800 number claiming to be from the “termination department” of their local untility company. The caller then asks for immediate payment, threatening that the customer’s services will be disconnected.
Quint says there are a number of “red flags” here that customers should deem suspicious.
“Local utilities, such as Waterloo North Hydro don’t call out from a 1-800 number. We are a local utility so we have local numbers…we never use the term ‘termination department,’ our group would be credit services or collections that would call and be in contact with customers.”
He says that there would never be a threat of an instant disconnection and explains that the actual process in place by Waterloo North Hydro includes multiple notices prior to disconnection, as well as an automated reminder call and a hand-delivered final notice.
Quint says that this process takes approximately 20-30 days.
Should you receive a call of this nature, Quint advises to not give out any personal payment details and collect any information possible to report to Waterloo North Hydro’s customer service department at 519-886-5090.
