Phone Scams Involving Customers’ Utility Bills on the Rise

KCP&L wants to warn all customers that the utility is seeing an escalated rate of utility scammers.

With the phone scam, the caller is often a live person posing as a KCP&L employee who notifies the customer of a past due bill and demands immediate payment to avoid service disconnection. Scammers also can manipulate the caller ID to look like KCP&L’s actual call center number. This phone number is not associated with KCP&L.

In some instances, the caller requests that the customer purchase a money gram to pay their bill. If the customer is unable to make an immediate payment or does not answer, the caller gives out a return phone number for customers to call back, however an important difference is that the callback number the scammer’s provide is not the KCP&L number. When calling, customers are often prompted by a convincing, but fraudulent recording to press two to make their payment with a live person.

If customers ever have questions about the legitimacy of a bill, phone call or email regarding their utility bill, they should refrain from providing any personal or banking information, hang up and contact the KCP&L Customer Contact Center at (888) 471-5275 or (816) 471-5275.