Yardley Police: Beware Of PECO Phone Scam (ICYMI)

YARDLEY, PA — Police in Yardley are urging residents to be careful of a telephone scammer claiming to be from PECO.

In the past few weeks, the so-called PECO scam has been reported in Newtown, Lower Makefield and other local municipalities. On Tuesday, Yardley Police shared a link on social media to a warning PECO has posted about the scam.

In it, the scammer tells victims that their electricity will be shut off if they fail to pay overdue balances or bills. The victims are told to go to stores and get prepaid gift cards, then call a second telephone number and provide the gift card information to satisfy the alleged outstanding balances. In some cases, the victims are also asked to provide their personal information.

PECO will never call you to request a bill payment in cash or a prepaid credit card, the power company said in its post. They also note that more sophisticated scammers may use a technique called "spoofing" to falsely make it look on Caller ID as if it's really PECO that's calling you.

Anyone who receives such a call should decline to give out information and call PECO directly at 1-800-494-4000 to verify the legitimacy of the calls, police said.

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