News19 is always on your side when it comes to keeping money in your wallet and away from scammers.
Someone posing as the utility company representative called a Midlands business owner and threatened to have her power shut off if she didn't pay up.
"Today was a pinch because I did not have that money but I had to make it happen to keep my power on," Chicken Shack owner Deborah Dyches said.
For most small businesses, any loss of money is a serious matter.
For Dyches, losing $1,000 to a scammer is a big hit.
"Whoever it was knew that I was scheduled for the 27th," Dyches said.
Dyches received a call from what she thought was a SCE&G representative saying she needed to immediately pay her past due bill.
The caller declined to take Dyches' Visa card which should uses to pay her bills and instead they asked for cash to be loaded on a Green Dot Money card.
"Any time you're getting a call and they're saying, 'Well, we can't accept credit cards,' or any sort of legitimate way of paying and they need that untraceable method of payment, that's a huge red flag," Juliana Harris with the state's Department of Consumer Affairs said
Harris said Green Dots and wire transfers tend to indicate scams.
The Green Dot Money card can be purchased at convenience stores.
Dyches bought the card and gave the caller the number on it, meaning she lost all her money.
"Scammers choose that because it's untraceable, once they have the money it's gone, it's just like wire transfer or very similar. You're not really going to trace or stop a wire transfer, usually they can pick it up anywhere and then they take the money and run," Harris said.
Harris recommends that if you feel a call is suspicious to hang up immediately and call the company directly to verify.
Dyches says falling victim to the scam will change her bill paying protocol.
"We're going to go through our bank and do a bill pay or normally we pay with my Visa or go to our local SCE&G and pay," Dyches said.
SCE&G first notified customers of the scam in late June, citing that scammers were contacting small businesses.
The company said they would never ask customers to purchase green dot cards to make a payment.
