Victims asked to deliver code of pre-paid cards

Feb 26, 2015 21:57 GMT  ·  By

Phone scams are successful because the attackers know how to pretend to be from an entity the potential victim trusts; lately, it has been observed that the crooks try to impersonate employees from the electrical company in order to extort money.

The scenario is simple and follows an age-old pattern: contact the potential victim, present a situation that needs to be addressed immediately, and ask for the money to mitigate the problem, whatever its nature may be.

Applied to the latest findings, the crooks use unpaid electrical bills as a means to hook the victim. The scammer impersonates a representative of an electrical company and threatens to cut off the power over alleged unpaid bills.

However, the victim is presented with a solution, which consists in making the payment over the phone by providing the code for a pre-paid voucher.

Brett Christensen from Hoax-Slayer reports that the payment choice given by the crook is Green Dot MoneyPak Card, a pre-paid debit card that can be fueled with funds at various merchants.

Scammers instruct the victim to purchase such a card and call back in a few minutes to provide the code that releases the money. The threat to cut off the power unless these directions are followed is reiterated.

Pre-paid cards or vouchers are not a payment method accepted by utility companies which may contact customers about overdue bills. However, if a legitimate representative calls, standard money transfer methods that can trace the funds are suggested.