Santa Cruz County DA’s Office warns of scam targeting small business owners

The Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office is warning residents about a phone scam that appears to be targeting small business owners.

In this current scam, someone calls a business purporting to represent PG&E and then tells them they have an overdue bill.

This week, a local medical group officer manager reported that she was called by someone calling himself Jason and claiming to represent PG&E. He told her that her office had a large overdue bill, said that electricity would be shut off in six hours unless it was paid immediately. The caller then told her to go CVS and purchase a Green Dot Money Pak card for $600 and call him back at 877-338-9225 to provide the Green Dot account number to him.

The office manager was able to verify online that the PG&E bill was paid and up-to-date and did not fall for the scam.

The PG&E website has warnings about this scam and others that use the PG&E name in order to extort money from customers. PG&E does not call customers on the phone in order to demand payment.

Call PG&E at 800-743-5000 to report anyone posing as a PG&E representative. Call the District Attorney’s Consumer Affairs unit to report scams as well as consumer complaints at 454-2050.