CPS Energy imposters scamming customers

SAN ANTONIO – CPS Energy is warning customers to beware of fake callers demanding payment and threatening to cut off service.

It's a warning Elizabeth Hernandez echoes after she was tricked out of nearly $500.

"It's very upsetting," she said. "I cried all day."

It started with a phone call to the West Side day care that Hernandez runs. An employee took the urgent message.

"They told her that I needed to pay my bill, and they were going to disconnect the line," Hernandez said.

When Hernandez returned the call to the number she thought was CPS Energy, the recorded message was very convincing. Following the recorded prompts, she talked to a man and threats soon followed. 

Hernandez was told she had to pay her bill within 30 minutes or there were be no lights and no air conditioning.

"Four hundred eighty-nine dollars and 56 cents, not more, not less," Hernandez said.

The caller instructed the child care operator to go to a specific office store, buy a certain prepaid card and load it with the payment. Once she read him the number on the card, her money was gone.

Using such methods of payment is increasingly common with scammers, because the funds are virtually untraceable.

"They took my money," Hernandez said.

The scammers even got so greedy that they called back later that day and attempted to gouge her for another $1,000. At that point, Hernandez refused.

Hernandez isn’t alone. CPS Energy spokesman Albert Cantu said the utility is getting a few calls about such scams every day.

"They know your AC system is important to you, so they are using scare tactics," Cantu said.

Cantu wants customers to know that the utility will never call or visit their home or business and threaten to turn off their power for payment, send an email to request payment, ask to enter their home without the customer initiating the request or ask the customer to purchase a prepaid debit card.

Also, CPS Energy has a local phone number, not a 1-800 or 1-844 prefix.

CPS Energy said these tactics are what scammers are using:

Cantu said customers who receive such calls should hang up and report them to the utility or police.

Customers with questions about their accounts should look up the phone number for themselves and call. Hernandez said she did just that. However, before the utility called her back, she had already made the payment.