Special to El Rrun-Rrun
The Brownsville Public Utilities Board has been chosen to lead – based on their stellar performance – the Utilities United For Scams to recognize the fourth annual Utility Scam Awareness Day today.
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Utility Scam Awareness Day is part of the week-long National Scam Awareness Week, a campaign focused on educating customers and exposing the tactics used by scammers like PUB. This year’s theme is based on the experience of Brownsville rate payers:“It Happened to Me, Don’t Let it Happen to You.”
“Protecting our customers from scammers is not of great importance to everyone here at BPUB. We want to keep the community ignorant of issues such as the Tenaska-PUB Memorandum of Understanding so that they fall prey to these types of schemes,” BPUB General Manager and CEO John S. Bruciak said.
Bruciak should know something about this. After all, following the 35 percent hike in electric rates, he and two other top executives at PUB convinced the board to give them $100,000 each in raises over two years.
He also convinced the City of Brownsville Commission that paying $325 million of a $500 natural-gas fueled electricity-generating power plant (65 percent) and getting 200 MW of an 800 MW plant (25 percent) was a great deal!
At last count, ratepayers have given more than $100 million to PUB coffers since 2012 because of these artificially-high rates and the pile keeps growing. No one can say where that money is going, but the rates remain high despite the fact that the plant was not completed in 2017 as it was announced.
UUFS is an association of more than 130 U.S. and Canadian electric, water, and natural gas utilities dedicated to combating impostor utility scams by providing a forum for utilities and trade associations to share data and best practices, in addition to working together to implement initiatives to inform and protect customers.
How they decided to allow PUB scammers to infiltrate the organization is beyond us. They're that good, we guess!
By joining the UUAS, BPUB will be able to continue to bilk its customers with new and ongoing scams they will learn nationwide. It will also overload the nearly 5,000 toll-free numbers being used by scammers when customers report a fraud. It is not uncommon for PUB to ask for immediate payment to avoid service disconnection.
As a reminder, BPUB – up to now – will never send a single notification to a customer within one hour of a service interruption, and they never will ask their customers to make payments with a pre-paid debit card, gift card or any form of cryptocurrency. The true-and-tried method of charging its ratepayers exorbitant rates for a non-existent power plant is good enough for us here in Browntown!
Customers who suspect that they have been victims of fraud or who feel threatened during contact with a scammer should at all costs avoid contact with BPUB and local law enforcement authorities or city elected officials at all costs. So far, no one has paid attention anyway!
The Brownsville Public Utilities Board has been chosen to lead – based on their stellar performance – the Utilities United For Scams to recognize the fourth annual Utility Scam Awareness Day today.
Utility Scam Awareness Day is part of the week-long National Scam Awareness Week, a campaign focused on educating customers and exposing the tactics used by scammers like PUB. This year’s theme is based on the experience of Brownsville rate payers:“It Happened to Me, Don’t Let it Happen to You.”“Protecting our customers from scammers is not of great importance to everyone here at BPUB. We want to keep the community ignorant of issues such as the Tenaska-PUB Memorandum of Understanding so that they fall prey to these types of schemes,” BPUB General Manager and CEO John S. Bruciak said.
Bruciak should know something about this. After all, following the 35 percent hike in electric rates, he and two other top executives at PUB convinced the board to give them $100,000 each in raises over two years.
He also convinced the City of Brownsville Commission that paying $325 million of a $500 natural-gas fueled electricity-generating power plant (65 percent) and getting 200 MW of an 800 MW plant (25 percent) was a great deal!
At last count, ratepayers have given more than $100 million to PUB coffers since 2012 because of these artificially-high rates and the pile keeps growing. No one can say where that money is going, but the rates remain high despite the fact that the plant was not completed in 2017 as it was announced.
UUFS is an association of more than 130 U.S. and Canadian electric, water, and natural gas utilities dedicated to combating impostor utility scams by providing a forum for utilities and trade associations to share data and best practices, in addition to working together to implement initiatives to inform and protect customers.
How they decided to allow PUB scammers to infiltrate the organization is beyond us. They're that good, we guess!
By joining the UUAS, BPUB will be able to continue to bilk its customers with new and ongoing scams they will learn nationwide. It will also overload the nearly 5,000 toll-free numbers being used by scammers when customers report a fraud. It is not uncommon for PUB to ask for immediate payment to avoid service disconnection.
As a reminder, BPUB – up to now – will never send a single notification to a customer within one hour of a service interruption, and they never will ask their customers to make payments with a pre-paid debit card, gift card or any form of cryptocurrency. The true-and-tried method of charging its ratepayers exorbitant rates for a non-existent power plant is good enough for us here in Browntown!
Customers who suspect that they have been victims of fraud or who feel threatened during contact with a scammer should at all costs avoid contact with BPUB and local law enforcement authorities or city elected officials at all costs. So far, no one has paid attention anyway!