Phone scam “spoofs” local clean energy group

SALT LAKE CITY — There is a new phone scam alert issued this week – after more than 200 calls from Utah residents to Utah Clean Energy, an apparent victim of a phone spoofing attack.

Sarah Wright, executive director of the local clean energy advocacy group, says these calls are not coming from Utah Clean Energy, but from scammers ‘spoofing’ that organization’s main phone number.

“Potentially hundreds of cellphone customers received calls that appeared to come from the Utah Clean Energy’s main phone number,” said Wright.

“However, these calls were not initiated by our company, rather from someone spoofing our organization’s main phone number,” she added.

What You Need To Know

1. The calls appear to have targeted Utah-based cellphone customers with area codes of 801 and 435.
2. Customers who received the spoofing call reported being treated badly, and others reported that these ‘spoofers’ were trying to sell them a solar installation.
3. Utah Clean Energy states they have received 200 calls from Utah residents complaining about the attacks.
4. Utah Clean Energy’s IT expert and phone carrier states that spoofing events are on the rise and there is little that residents or businesses can do to prevent spoofing attacks.

You can find more information regarding ‘phone spoofing‘ on the Federal Communications Commission’s website.

The FCC says you should never answer calls from unknown numbers and if you do, hang up immediately.  If you speak to the person on the other end, never give out any personal information such as maiden names, Social Security numbers or passwords.