No relocation of meters at West Coast – GPL informs …as woman scammed by men posing as employees

May 24, 2018 News

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There is no ongoing campaign by the Guyana Power and Light Inc. to relocate meters at residences on the West Coast of Demerara.
This was the assertion of officials at the GPL’s Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara branch when a customer, Ms. Chandradai Latchoo, enquired about two purported GPL technicians who visited her home last week Wednesday [May 16].
The incident is one that has also since been reported at the Leonora Police Station.
According to Latchoo, of Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara, she was home alone preparing a meal around 11:00 hours last Wednesday when her attention was aroused by persons climbing her front stairway. Not expecting any visitors, the woman said that from a vantage point in her home she peered outside and saw two young men [perhaps in their 30s] she didn’t recognise.
At the top of her stairway, the woman said that the men, who identified themselves as GPL meter readers, started knocking at her door. The men, she recounted, also asked if she could make available to them her last GPL bill.
Not knowing this to be the norm, the woman said that she rushed and opened her front door to query why her bill was required.
Upon opening her door, the woman said that she was also asked for her national identification card. The men, however, neither presented identification badges nor wore uniforms which suggested they were GPL employees.
“They started asking me for copies of both my ID card and my last GPL bill and I didn’t really understand why,” the woman related.
She said that reluctantly she decided to accede to the men’s request, partially, and brought her most recent bill to them. The men, the woman said, appeared alarmed when they saw her bill was just over $18,000 and started to enlighten her of how they could help to reduce the high electricity cost. This they said would only be possible if she allowed them into the house.
Worried that something sinister was afoot, the woman quickly retorted, “I can’t let ya’ll in because my husband inside sleeping and he wouldn’t want to be disturbed’.”
Of course her husband was nowhere around at the time, but Latchoo said that she became quite suspicious of the men and decided to use the misinformation as a defensive strategy.
The woman said too that she saw the need to let someone else know of the men’s presence at her home.
“I told them I don’t have an ID card but I could get my passport for them,” recalled Latchoo. The woman said that she started to close her door while she returned inside to find the document, but as soon as her back was turned she felt the door being slowly pushed open.
“I turn around and slam the door in and bolt it and press down the safety because I know was not breeze blowing it open; it had to be these men pushing it open,” Latchoo speculated.
The woman said she decided to place a call via telephone to an elderly man who lived nearby to share what was happening at her home. The woman said she only ventured out back when she heard the elderly man outside questioning the purported GPL employees about their presence there.
“He was asking them since when meter readers does want bill and ID card. Me know that they does just read the meter and leave,” said Latchoo.
The men explained that they were tasked with not only reading the meter but also relocating it, thus the need for the necessary documentation.
Accepting of the men’s reasoning, Latchoo in the company of the elderly neighbour and the two men, headed to a nearby photocopy shop where she copied the documents and handed same over. But instead of carrying out further works, the woman said that the men hurried into a parked unmarked vehicle and seemed prepared to leave without saying anything further to her. However, just as they were about to leave, the woman said that she recognised the men handing over the photocopied documents to another man who she recognised as her estranged brother.
Perplexed by the development, the woman hurriedly tried to gain an explanation from the men who along with her brother quickly left the neighbourhood.
In distress, the woman said that the same day she decided to visit the GPL’s office where she queried about the visit by the purported workers. She however learnt that no GPL workers were dispatched to her community to relocate any meters. The woman was informed too that GPL workers are always required to identify themselves and have identification to substantiate their claim.
In fact the GPL officials have advised that the matter be reported to the police too.
The woman has since been enlightened that although the “scammers” did not take her original documents, they could in fact use the photocopied passport to forge her signature for a number of reasons. Also the woman was informed that she could have been saved from an even worse fate. As such she is urging other members of the public, especially housewives, to ensure that they safeguard themselves in order to ensure that they too do not fall into a similar trap.

 

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