Be Careful of Bogus Callers
Local Energy supplier NIE Energy would like to warn customers to be careful following a bogus caller incident in North Belfast.
In this most recent incident an elderly lady from North Belfast received a call from man with a foreign accent claiming to be from NIE Energy. The man was offering the lady an appliance which he said could be plugged into her meter to save money off her electricity bill.
Chris Bell, Customer Relations Coordinator from NIE Energy said: “This call did not come from NIE Energy and over the past couple of weeks, we have had a number of reports of bogus callers.
“The lady became suspicious when the caller said she pays by direct debit when in fact, the lady pays using a pay as you go Keypad. The bogus caller repeatedly tried to get the elderly lady’s bank details and was quite rude in the process.
“Receiving a bogus call like this can be very distressing. NIE Energy has been in touch with the PSNI and they said that unfortunately, incidents of this sort here happening day and daily. Their advice is to be very careful of people phoning or calling to your home.
“What we would advise is that if any customer is worried that the caller isn’t legitimate, terminate the call. Legitimate companies won’t have a problem with you calling them back. In the case of NIE Energy, you can find our telephone number on the back of bills or direct debit statements and also in the Yellow Pages and Phonebook, as well as online.”
If there are any other similar calls, you can contact NIE Energy’s Customer Helpline on 08457 455 455 (Local call rate. Monday-Friday 8am-8pm and Saturday 9am-1pm).