Staying vigilant: How to avoid an energy scam

Businesses face various threats, one of the most deceptive being energy scams. It’s crucial to stay vigilant as these tactics aim to extract sensitive information and compromise your data security. Scammers often impersonate energy company representatives or regulatory authorities to gain your trust and access your data. 

Energy scam advice

As your trusted supplier, we take fraud and crime seriously and are dedicated to doing everything we can to protect our customers. Recently, criminals have posed as SmartestEnergy Business representatives to target customers and extract information. 

These scams can appear through door knocking, cold-calling, email, text, WhatsApp, Messenger, and social media. The messages often convincingly impersonate our brand and may even claim to be from Ofgem, the energy regulator. To help protect your business, we’ve compiled the following advice: 

Please be cautious of any unplanned phone calls, criminals can use spoofed numbers to impersonate SmartestEnergy Business or others, pressuring your to confirm personal information or passwords. Please be extra cautious if the call appears to be made from a noisy call centre, as this can be a sign of an illegitimate call. 

 If you’re suspicious about any such call, please hang up and also report the instance to SmartestEnergy Business if the call was not from us, by calling the phone number on your invoice or our website. If possible, please note the telephone number the caller was using, the name they are using and any other information they have already obtained so that this can be reported to our data protection team. 

Engaging a broker for energy services

If you’re contacted by an energy broker, before deciding whether to engage their services, we would firstly advise that you do your own checks to ensure they are legitimate, well-established and trusted. 

If you do choose to appoint an energy broker, they will be required to operate on your behalf under Letter of Authority (LOA) when handling your supply contract with an energy supplier. 

What to do if you suspect you have fallen for a scam 

Depending on the severity of the scam and whether you have provided sensitive information such as your bank details, you should report it immediately to your bank. If you have any questions or concerns in relation to this, please contact our Customer Services Team on 01903 703400 or email customerservices.business@smartestenergy.com.