Wisconsin Public Service IMPOSTER

Victim Location 54501

Type of a scam Utility

Received a voice mail that read:

Hello, This call is from WI Public Service. This is an automated call to inform you that your account reflects disconnection order taking place today due to non payment history. Please contact us at 1 (866) 825-6604 to avoid disconnection. Sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause you. Thank you for choosing WI Public Service.

When you call the number you will hear a menu of options that seems to be the same as the actual WPS menu options; however, when you put in your account or telephone number you will get cut off. If you press 0 you will eventually get through to the scammer. The scammer will tell you that your service is scheduled to be cut off within the next 1/2 hour unless you pay your unpaid balance. He said I owed $400 and that I must pay at either a Walmart or Family Dollar and not at my local WPS office. At this point I realized it was a scam and hung up. I did call back at a later time to alert my students how this scam works and this time the scammer told me I was red flagged for not having paid a security deposit on my account. He asked for my credit card information over the phone to make an immediate payment. At this point I let him know I was the one playing games as I had him on speaker phone so an entire high school class of personal finance students could hear how the scam worked.