(818) 745-0631

I help manage 2 restaurants. On Sa****ay, August 16 2014, both restaurants received a call from the "electric company". We were told that our bill was past due and that our power would be shut off in 30 minutes if we did not pay. I told him any such arrangements need to go through our office that maintains our (movie theater, office supply store, hardware store, both restaurants, and gas station) utility bills and that the office is closed on weekends. He said they tried that number first, found they were closed, then were calling each business to have it taken care of. There were many red flags to this call. First of all, the power company doing shut-offs on the weekend or the bill must be paid in 30 minutes? Highly unlikely. Identifying themselves as from the "electric company" rather than the real name (even though when asked they could name it) is also suspect. When pressed, they could not tell us what the acronym of our power company stood for. Finally, having a somewhat thick Asian accent, when our local company is occupied by our neighbors, gave me great pause. After finding this site, I decided to have a little fun with them so I called the number they provided me back and told them I had spoken to the ownership and authorized them to "do what they needed to do". I was told they would be here in 5 minutes. I am still waiting. I should have put them on hold the first time they called and never picked it up a***n. That might have also been fun at these scammers expense.

A man called and said that LADWP was going to cut off my power in 15 minutes if I didn't make a $500 to $999 payment.

Scam do not give money call police