The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has cautioned Ghanaians to be vigilant in order not to fall prey to mobile money fraudsters, who are using the name of the company to defraud unsuspecting customers.
According to the company, the ECG Power App and the Short Code *226# are the only digital platforms, which are available to clients to make payments on any services rendered by the company to its customers.
Mr George Amoah, General Manager, Ashanti West Region of ECG, who stated this pointed out that, the company did not have any Mobile Money (MoMo) account for customers to make service payments.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi in reaction to several complaints by customers, who have been defrauded by unknown persons who posed as ECG officials, he advised customers to desist from engaging third parties when looking for services from the company.
Mr Amoah noted that all the six district offices under the Ashanti West region, made up of Abuakwa, Adum, Ahinsan, Danyame, Kokoben and Suame had received many complaints concerning such fraudulent activities.
According to the reports, the fraudsters usually contacted clients through phone calls or on social media, to render services such as meter installations, meter replacement, debt cancellation and others, at a fee.
Mr Amoah said the victims were therefore, directed by the fraudsters to pay the service charges into a so-called ECG MoMo account, before the services were rendered.
However, after the payments had been made, the fraudsters switch off their phones and block the victims’ contact or do away with the SIM cards used.
Mr Amoah mentioned some of the contacts used by the fraudsters as 0531807230, 0508790801, 05403803302 and 0532752541.
He recalled that recently, a customer, who had applied for a meter with the Adum District office, was asked to make a service payment of GHC 900.00 into an ECG MoMo account – 0508058638, for meter installation.
After the customer made the payment, the fraudster asked the customer to add GHC 500.00, as installation fee for a new connection.
However, Mr Amoah said the customer became suspicious, refused to top up the money and reported the incident to the authorities of the Adum District office.
Additionally, he recalled an instance where an old man was defrauded of GHC 2000.00 for meter installation at Breman.
MrAmoah said the ECG was working closely with the security agencies to apprehend the perpetrators and prosecute them.
He explained that, customers who applied for meters or services were required to pay GHC100.00 at the ECG office after which an estimator would visit the customers’ premises to inspect the installations and prepare a quotation.
“Once the quotation is ready, you will receive an SMS from the ECG with a unique code stating how much to pay depending on the service requested, either a separate meter or a new service,” Mr Amoah said.
The quotation fee, according to him, could be paid through the ECG Power App or at the office, after which no other payment was expected to be made, not even to the contractors to install the meters.
“If you want to even pay via the ECG Power App, you will initiate the transaction yourself but ECG will not call you that your meter is ready so send money to someone’s personal account or any mobile money number,” he explained.
Mr Amoah said the replacement of faulty meters was free and advised citizens against making payments for the replacement of faulty meters to anyone.
Again, he urged the public to disregard the information that the ECG had no meters because the introduction of the Loss Reduction Project (LPG) brought along enough meters for customers who paid for service applications.
Mr Amoah appealed to the public to help the company curb the menace of MoMo fraudsters by dealing with ECG when they needed meters, making payments for meters at the ECG office and reporting anyone who called demanding payment into a MoMo account to the police or the nearest ECG Office.
GNA
