Green Isn't Always Good

Last month I got scammed for the first time. I'm a pretty skeptical person by nature and tend to ignore most people on the street who approach me for donations to buy a child, save a tree or fight the man. In fact, I've personally found that there are two simple things anyone can do to escape scam predators on the city streets: wear headphones and don't carry more than 30 bucks on you at any time.

However, the scammers finally found my one weakness: come to where I live. I had just returned to my apartment with one of my roommates after going out to a wine tasting. We were in good spirits and in the middle of telling a story as we walked down the hallway to our door, which is why we didn't pay much attention to the two guys in suits camped out by the elevator. A few minutes after we'd stepped into the apartment, we heard a knock. We answered and sure enough, it was them.

"We're with Con-Ed," one of them said. Then he pointed at the other guy and said, "this is my partner for the day. He's new and I'm just showing him the ropes." The other man smiled pleasantly and said hello. Then the first man continued. "We're just going around, checking peoples' most recent Con-Ed bills. You see, everybody should be getting a discount right about now and just want to make sure everything's in order. If you have one lying around, we can just check real quick and save you the trouble of being overcharged."

Never mind that it was 10 o'clock at night. Never mind that there was something called the Internet where we had electronic statements and updates about deals. I felt comfortable with their friendliness and figured that as long as I was not asked for a credit card, check or cash, nothing bad could happen. So I fetched the bill from the living room and brought it to them.

They scanned the bill and circled two or three places where we could save money. Then I watched as they wrote down the name on the bill, a couple numbers with dollar signs attached and the Con-Ed account number. They never asked for a credit card, but as I soon found out, they didn't need to. At the very end, they asked me to sign something. (I should mention here that the account isn't in my name so I figured my signature would not count for much). With that, they gave us some pieces of paper and left.

I knew I was scammed the moment I shut the door. I looked at the papers and saw they were with a company called IDT Energy. My first thought: Dammit, I've been hustled by a company whose name basically spells out IDioT!

I did a quick Google search and found several stories like this that explained how these people go door-to-door, getting Con-Ed customers' account numbers and then canceling their service. They then sign up those people with new IDT accounts. Customers usually end up paying more with IDT and on top of that, they pay a penalty to Con-Ed for canceling their accounts prematurely. The salespeople on the other hand make a nice commission through these scams.

IDT is a real company whose mission statement is "Buy Green today - for a better tomorrow." But if you've been scammed, your tomorrow will mostly be spent on the phone with Con-Ed, explaining the situation and telling them to freeze your account before it's too late.

- Seth