Had a guy attempt to scam me yesterday - Liberty Power Electric Service Slam Attempt
So, yesterday, there is a knock on the door and a young man standing on my front steps with an iPad and a badge. Keeping the storm door closed, since I'm not interested in having strangers breathe on me, we spoke with the door shut.
He had some patter about being an "independent contractor from the power company" and "needing to make sure you aren't overcharged" and some other nonsense about "you should have gotten an email".
Being kind of distracted by events, I was pretty surprised that I wasn't really paying attention, and I mindlessly got a copy of my electric bill.
So, he asks me my address, which is pretty weird since he is standing right there next to my house number, and he types that into some app running on the iPad. Then, he asks for a "service ID number" which is essentially a serial number that uniquely identifies your electric meter. It's like the IMEI on you phone, and is required by your service provider.
It's also required to switch your service to another provider.
At that point, I came to my senses and thought "what the fuck am I doing?" I took a closer look at his badge and it said "Liberty Power", and the app he was running appeared to be some kind of Liberty Power app.
He claimed they were a contractor of my power company as I called my power company, and got a customer service representative. I said, "There is a young man at my front door and..." "IT'S A SCAM!" the rep shouted over me.
So, he's still conveniently standing on my porch while I called 911, but then he notices that I'm giving a detailed description of his appearance and clothing, and he starts hot walking down the street. I follow him at a distance to get a description of his car, and two of my neighbors come out to join me, and he picks up the pace.
Taking a look at "Liberty Power" in search results, they appear to be a large scale scammy operation with a commission structure that they know damn well encourages this kind of thing.
The Illinois Attorney General is, in fact, trying to shut them down:
https://patch.com/illinois/across-il/illinois-attorney-general-sues-shut-down-liberty-power-scam
CHICAGO — Alternative retail electric supplier Liberty Power has scammed tens of thousands of Illinois consumers out of more than $77 million over the past seven years, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the state's attorney general.
The suit seeks to shut down Florida-based Liberty Power Holdings LLC, which it says engages in large-scale, deliberate fraud and outright theft in order to deceive electricity consumers into signing contracts to buy overpriced products.
"Liberty Power runs a scam," the suit alleges. "Since at least 2012, Liberty has used an illegal and deceptive marketing scheme to deceive Illinois consumers into switching their electric supplier. Commission-hungry Liberty agents, caught red-handed on audio recordings, recycle the same lies, the same false comparisons, the same artful omissions, all in the service of knowingly tricking Illinois consumers into paying more for their electricity—and lining Liberty's pocket.
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