IDT Energy Scammer Spotted On Upper East Side

A reader living on the Upper East Side describes almost being scammed not an hour ago by an IDT Energy salesman pretending they were from ConEd. This was around 62nd street between 1st and 2nd avenues. If you live in the area, keep an eye, and maybe a camera lens, out for as an African-American male in his 20’s wearing khakis, dress shoes, and a buttoned up shirt and probably carrying a binder. Jeremy writes:

I work from home and was in the middle of a busy period when a young man came to my door saying that he worked for ConEd or that he was doing some work for ConEd — he definitely identified himself with ConEd. Anyways, he told me he that he was doing work in the building and that he needed to see my bill to check if I had a message on it indicating that I was one of the ones in the building who would be getting a discount next month. Well, chock it up to me being distracted or just plain gullible, but I never even thought for a second that it was a scam. He seemed like he was merely performing a check, not anything more. He then proceed to tell me that I was, in fact, one of the lucky ones, and that I’d be seeing a 7% discount starting next month (all the while making notations on my bill, supposedly indicating where the savings would come from).


He told me he just needed my signature to verify that we had spoken. It wasn’t until he asked for a second signature that I got suspicious. Ya see, the second signature was on a form that he covered up completely except for the signature line. When I pulled up the sheet to read what I was signing, he pulled it back real fast and started mumbling an obviously rehearsed sales pitch about what it supposedly was.

Fortunately, I wised up and caught the scam and sent him on his way. The whole experience, however, was BEYOND SHADY! They are not attempting to run anything legitimate (or at least this guy wasn’t).

— BEN POPKEN

RELATED: Our undercover investigation into IDT Energy

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