Southern California Edison: Palm Springs residents lost thousands of dollars to impersonators last year ⋆ The Palm Springs Post

Palm Springs residents have been swindled out of thousands of dollars by scammers pretending to be from the utility company Southern California Edison (SCE).

Driving the news: SCE said Tuesday that scammers set up a fake website that appears in online searches for “new utility service” and tricked thousands of customers into giving up their information and cash.

By the numbers: Last year, there were 3,030 SCE customer scam reports, resulting in $244,150 in losses. Residents in Palm Springs were scammed out of $4,832, the highest amount in the valley.

In the past, SCE said, scammers targeted residential and commercial customers evenly, but now they think the ratio is more like 75% residential targets.

Here’s why: Even a recent $300 million fine to scammers who were responsible for more than five billion robocalls doesn’t deter others from ringing at all hours of the day.

Dive deeper: Cybersecurity experts say that robocalls, in particular, are so prevalent because they’re so cheap and easy to set up. The effort and risk are low, and the potential payout is high.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, scammers are using artificial intelligence to mimic the voices of your loved ones, urgently asking for ransom money.

Worth noting: SCE has several important tips to keep in mind whenever you get what appears to be a communication from the company. SCE doesn’t demand credit card payments over the phone and won’t accept prepaid Visa cards, Bitcoin, Zelle, or Venmo. When looking at an email, examine any URLs that might look realistic but are still fake. The only real website is sce.com