Black Hills Power is alerting the public to a possible scam. Officials say around six of it’s customers are reporting that someone claiming to be from Black Hills Power is calling and threatening to shut off the customer’s electricity unless they hand over personal information like credit card numbers.
BHP’s Senior External Affairs Manager Mutch Usera says this scam was stepped up - meaning the name Black Hills Power actually came up on customer’s caller IDs. This makes the scammers appear to be legitimate.
“It was a very high-pressured scam. They were trying to panic our consumer, our customer, into releasing information. The good news is we didn’t have any customers that fed into the scam. They did contact us for confirmation and obviously were able to void whatever was happening – at least let the customer know that it wasn’t us,” says Usera.
Usera says Black Hills Power representatives do not ask for credit card or social security numbers over the phone. He urges customers to call BHP or law enforcement to report any suspicious callers.