Sheriff’s Office Warns of Phone Scam

The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release yesterday notifying the public of a phone scam that pertains to an automated service claiming to be from Duke Energy.

According to the release, the caller states that electrical power service will be disconnected if the customer will not pay a certain sum of money within an allotted time.  The caller has been requesting that customer purchase green dot cards to pay their bill.

According to the press release, Duke Energy will never ask customers to pay their bills using a prepaid card.  Also, Duke Energy says that they will never shut off a customer’s power in a short amount of time with no prior warning and that if a customer’s power will be shut off, that customer will receive multiple notices over several months.