Latest On Hack: Utility Companies to Notify Consumers

On the heels of a Thursday cabinet meeting designed to expand outreach to consumers about protecting their credit in the wake of an historic breach, Gov. Nikki Haley announced on Friday that public and private utilities and the twenty electric cooperatives of South Carolina are including a message regarding identity theft protection in customers’ electric and gas bills.  More than 3.1 million customers across the state will be reached as customers begin to receive messages in November and December bills.

“In the wake of bad people doing bad things, it’s wonderful to see good people stepping up to do good things,” said Gov. Haley. “I can’t thank these companies and executives enough – including Mike Couick from Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Keller Kissam from South Carolina Electric & Gas (a SCANA company), Clark Gillespy from Duke Energy of South Carolina and Lonnie Carter of Santee Cooper – for stepping up to help the people of our state. They are great corporate citizens.”

VIEW PATCH'S COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE HACK HERE.

S.C. individual taxpayers should do the following by Jan. 31, 2013:

• ·Visit www.ProtectMyID.com/SCDOR (code SCDOR123) or call 1-866-578-5422 (M-F 9am-9pm EST; S-S 11am-8pm EST) to enroll for one year of identity theft protection.
  

S.C. business owners should do one or both of the following by Jan. 31, 2013:

• Visit www.DandB.com/SC or call 1-800-279-9881 (M-F 8am-8pm EST) to register for lifetime credit alert protection.
• Visit www.SmartBusinessReports.com/SouthCarolina to register for lifetime business credit monitoring.

VIEW PATCH'S COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE HACK HERE.