“some sort of iteration of the PEPCO scam may be afoot”

“Dear PoPville,

You’ve written on similar many times in the past but just a head’s up and a general query if they have hit up any others, that some sort of iteration of the PEPCO scam may be afoot. A young woman with a Russian/Eastern European accent was going door to door in Michigan Park this evening.

She showed up around 6:30 saying that people in the neighborhood had reported excessive charges to their PEPCO bills and that they were out to look into it. She said she was from some company (I couldn’t clearly understand her, but it wasn’t Pepco) carried an iPad and had a lanyard of a non-Pepco company and an ID badge facing the wrong way so it was just a blank white badge.

She said she wanted to inspect my bill to insure I hadn’t been needlessly impacted. Sensing something fishy, in an attempt to shoo her off, I said I have paperless billing so don’t have anything handy. She said, that’s okay, if you can login to your account I can show you. Trying to shoo her off one more time as I was trying to get my toddler to eat and ready for bed, I said my computer was upstairs and I’m not. I then turned it back on her and said “I’ll take a look and call you if I have problems. I should call Pepco, right?” She replied with “No, I am the agent for this neighborhood and I will be in the neighborhood til 8pm, call me, Leena.” She gave me a non-202 number and eventually went next door. I later learned the area code was for northern New Jersey.”