BOISE, Idaho — Scam calls are on the rise and have become more common among Idaho customers.
Idaho Power has seen an increase in both home and business customer calls reporting several scams. The most common one they are seeing is scams demanding payment.
“There is often an action item or even a threat associated with that, like if you don't pay right now, we are going to turn off your power," Idaho Power’s Communication Specialist Jordan Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez wants the community to know that Idaho Power will never call and ask for a payment over the phone.
"What we encourage you to do is, if you have any reason at all to question whether a phone call is legitimate, immediately end that call hang up and call us and we can talk through any issues on your account,” he said.
Another issue the company is seeing is an increase of misleading information by local companies selling solar systems.
"Most of these companies are indeed selling the solar panels, but the catch is that some are misrepresenting their relationship or affiliation with Idaho Power,” said Rodriguez.
And he the companies might say they were there on behalf of Idaho Power or contracted with the power company, which Rodriguez says is not true.
Idaho Power’s role with solar panels is to simply interconnect the systems to their grid. Some solar companies go as far as telling customers that they will never have to pay a power bill or experience outages. Rodriguez says that is not true.
"Oftentimes the solar doesn't cover the entirety of the bill, in which case, they would pay us the remainder. In the case it does cover it all, there is still an interconnection fee so you're going to have at least a small bill,” said Rodriguez.
If you have received a scam call, Rodriguez encourages you to give them a call. Treasure Valley residents can call (208) 388-2323, and for everyone outside the area it’s 1-800-388-6151.
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