The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (WAPA) Sunday issued a Scam Alert to its customers, who appear to be the targets of attempts to solicit monies for WAPA payments without authorization.
WAPA Executive Director Lawrence J. Kupfer said the Authority has received calls from customers reporting that they were threatened with disconnection if immediate payments were not made on their accounts.
“Customers are receiving telephone calls from a toll-free 800 telephone number with the caller purporting to be a WAPA employee seeking immediate payment on accounts to avoid service disconnection,” Kupfer said.
The executive director confirmed that WAPA does not have anyone calling customers, and such actions by these scammers are not authorized by the Authority.
“We are concerned that such actions are taking place by unknown individuals. WAPA advises its customers to disregard such calls and report the information to the proper authorities.” Reports can be made to the Virgin Islands Police Department, or to WAPA’s Internal Audit Revenue Assurance Division at 715-6563.
Customers who do not receive their billing statement in the mail during the usual time period expected each month, should contact WAPA on St. Thomas and St. John at 774-3552 or on St. Croix at 773-2250, and they report that information to a customer service representative who will verify account information during the call.
WAPA’s customers are urged to be cautious about sharing account numbers, personal identification numbers and other confidential information pertaining to their account with others. They should also secure billing statements that may have related information.
I’ve read some reports filed at https://www.whycall.me/800-653-5307.html about similar electric related scams. Those scammers have been around for years. People should be very familiar with how these scammers work by now and keep spreading the word.