A person claiming to be from a utility company may not be.

West Penn Power spokesman Todd Meyers said scams where people impersonate utility workers are something the company tries to warn people about.

“There are so many utility scams unfortunately that our parent company, First Energy, put out a portion of the website that is dedicated to nothing but the different scams out there involving utilities,” Meyers said.

Sometimes scam artists may work in pairs or groups.

“They may say they’re there from West Penn Power or another utility, and they try to engage them in conversation and try to get them to show their bill,” Meyers said. “In the meantime, they may have a partner who’s going in through the backdoor and stealing items.”

He said there are some steps people can take when dealing with suspected con artists.

“What I always tell people to do is they need to be very vigilant,” he said.

Meyers said there are not many reasons why West Penn Power would come to people’s doors.

Employees would have photographic identification, be in uniform and have a company vehicle.

“If I were vigilant and didn’t have an appointment for the company to come, I would politely yet firmly close the door and say I’m going to give West Penn Power a call,” Meyers said. “If you were a real West Penn Power employee with a real reason to be there, you would just sit and wait it out until that phone call was made.”

Scenarios where employees would go door-to-door in neighborhoods is if there is an emergency situation dealing with utilities or if service to a residence were to be terminated.

He said one scam that circulates at this time of year is perpetrators going door-to-door telling people that their trees need to be trimmed and they need to pay for it.

“It’s completely false,” Meyers said. “We do trim trees, but that’s part of everybody’s bill.”

For more information, visit www.firstenergycorp.com/scaminfo.