Wednesday, November 20, 2019

PUB NAMED CHAIR OF PUBLIC UTILITIES UNITED FOR SCAMS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The Brownsville Public Utilities Board has been chosen to lead – based on their stellar performance – the Utilities United For Scams to recognize the fourth annual Utility Scam Awareness Day today.

Utility Scam Awareness Day is part of the week-long National Scam Awareness Week, a campaign focused on educating customers and exposing the tactics used by scammers like PUB. This year’s theme is based on the experience of Brownsville rate payers: “It Happened to Me, Don’t Let it Happen to You.”

“Protecting our customers from scammers is not of great importance to everyone here at BPUB. We want to keep the community ignorant of issues such as the Tenaska-PUB Memorandum of Understanding so that they fall prey to these types of schemes,” BPUB General Manager and CEO John S. Bruciak said.

Bruciak should know something about this. After all, following the 35 percent hike in electric rates, he and two other top executives at PUB convinced the board to give them $100,000 each in raises over two years.

He also convinced the City of Brownsville Commission that paying $325 million of a $500 natural-gas fueled electricity-generating power plant (65 percent) and getting 200 MW of an 800 MW plant (25 percent) was a great deal!

At last count, ratepayers have given more than $100 million to PUB coffers since 2012 because of these artificially-high rates and the pile keeps growing. No one can say where that money is going, but the rates remain high despite the fact that the plant was not completed in 2017 as it was announced.

UUFS is an association of more than 130 U.S. and Canadian electric, water, and natural gas utilities dedicated to combating impostor utility scams by providing a forum for utilities and trade associations to share data and best practices, in addition to working together to implement initiatives to inform and protect customers.

How they decided to allow PUB scammers to infiltrate the organization is beyond us. They're that good, we guess!

By joining the UUAS, BPUB will be able to continue to bilk its customers with new and ongoing scams they will learn nationwide. It will also overload the nearly 5,000 toll-free numbers being used by scammers when customers report a fraud. It is not uncommon for PUB to ask for immediate payment to avoid service disconnection.

As a reminder, BPUB – up to now – will never send a single notification to a customer within one hour of a service interruption, and they never will ask their customers to make payments with a pre-paid debit card, gift card or any form of cryptocurrency. The true-and-tried method of charging its ratepayers exorbitant rates for a non-existent power plant is good enough for us here in Browntown!

Customers who suspect that they have been victims of fraud or who feel threatened during contact with a scammer should at all costs avoid contact with BPUB and local law enforcement authorities or city elected officials at all costs. So far, no one has paid attention anyway!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha how Ironic, scammers warning people about other scammers. "Putos Unidos de Brownsville" someone in the higher ups are skimming money off the people of brownsville. No wonder watt rates added upon billing is fucking so high. Even more during the summer and winter. Keeping the gente jodida in brownsville like their quota motivated Police department.

Anonymous said...

PUB is guilty of "the pot calling the kettle black".

Anonymous said...

Scammers worried about others scamming their prey. Let’s face it the PUB is monopoly and the biggest scam of all.

Anonymous said...

Simple solution: LOWER THE RATES PENDEJOS AS THEY WERE BEFORE YOU PURCHASED THE INVISIBLE GENERATOR JUST LIKE THE BRIDGE TO NO WHERE!!!!

Anonymous said...

DIRTY TREY HOMEMADE CHEESE IS MADE FROM POWDERED MILK.

P.U.B. SHOULD BE A CITY DEPARTMENT. JUST LIKE IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. THIS IS WHY CITY GOVT. IS WEAK AND POOR. CITY DEPATMENT LEADERS PAID 500,000.00 FOR SOMEONE TO WRITE CITY CODES. WHO COPIED IT FROM ANOTHER CITY. IF C.O.B. CANNOT DO THE WORK, GIVE IT TO ELEMENTARY students. AT LEAST WE WOULD KNOW THEY TRIED THERE BEST. CITY GOVT WANTS CHANGE, BUT ARE AFRAID OF WORK.
DIRTY TREY PIZZA SAID HE WOULD RUN BROWNSVILLE LIKE A BUSINESS. WELL, HIS HOMEMADE CHEESE PIZZA PLACE IS ONLY OPEN 5 HOURS A DAY. AND CLOSED ON SUNDAY-WEDNESDAY.
GUEY TO GO!

Pancho pistolas said...

PUB-now there is a scam altogether. no need to go to these conferences or conventions, juan the scam i right here in our home town

rita