SRP warning customers to look out for potential utility payment scam

Officials with Salt River Project are warning customers about a scheme, where potential victims are being told that they need to pay their SRP bill immediately, using the money transfer app Zelle, or their power will be turned off.

Company officials say they have received multiple reports of scammers targeting customers, in the past three weeks, and the number popping up on your screen may look like an SRP number, but it is all an elaborate scheme.

Officials with SRP say they never ask customers to use a specific payment method, and they do not accept payments via Zelle.

"A really good way to kind of know if something is not right is they're demanding," said Shon Mack with SRP. "It's very intense, it's happening right now. So, they'll say, 'hey, you have to make a $200 to $300 payment right now, or we're going to disconnect your power,' and SRP will never do that. We will sometimes call customers, but it's never 'you have to something right now, or there's going to be an immediate action.'"

Company officials said people who received a call from someone demanding paying and claiming they are with SRP need to hang up on the call, and call SRP directly.

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An elderly woman is using a landline phone (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/picture alliance via Getty Images)

(Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/picture alliance via Getty Images)