{"id":37839,"date":"2013-11-14T21:46:33","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T01:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miserybay.usanethosting.com\/wordpress\/?p=37839"},"modified":"2013-11-14T21:46:33","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T01:46:33","slug":"leonard-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/leonard-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Cautions local residents to be wary of new telephone scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State Rep. Tom Leonard<!--more--><br \/>\nLocal residents who are contacted by phone and told to make immediate payments to their utility company should be wary of a new telephone scam, cautions state Rep. Tom Leonard.<br \/>\nThe scam involves callers claiming to be from the utility company, who contact residential and business customers and threaten to disconnect their electrical service unless immediate payment is made. The caller then instructs customers to send money through a prepaid card or online payment service, such as GreenDot or PayPal, in an attempt to defraud people. The scammer\u2019s caller-ID is falsified so it appears to originate from the utility company.<br \/>\nLeonard advises any resident who receives a similar call to hang up and immediately call the utility company\u2019s phone number \u2013 found on their monthly statement or online \u2013 to verify the earlier call was legitimate.<br \/>\n\u201cUtility companies would not demand payment over the phone, so local residents should be cautious of any caller who does that,\u201d said Leonard, R-DeWitt Township. \u201cUnfortunately, these scams pop up occasionally, so it\u2019s important to be aware of them. Being vigilant is the best defense against fraud attempts such as this.\u201d<br \/>\nLeonard reminds residents that Michigan utility companies accept a variety of payment methods and are willing to work with customers to avoid shutoff.<br \/>\nAdditional tips on avoiding utility fraud are available on the Michigan Public Service Commission website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/documents\/mpsc\/mpsc-ca_utilityservicefraud_211946_7.pdf?20131106132231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.michigan.gov\/documents\/mpsc\/mpsc-ca_utilityservicefraud_211946_7.pdf?20131106132231<\/a> or by visiting the Federal Trade Commission at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ftc.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.ftc.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State Rep. Tom Leonard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}