[Summit] Scam alert

[Lisa Rigby]

Just to follow up on the cards being left on door knobs for gas
inspection.... I had RI Energy here this morning for a gas inspection. I
scheduled them based on a letter I got in the mail. I told the two workers
that a guy had been here in May. He said "Oh, the cards that they leave on
doors?" I said "yes!" He said "those guys inspect our work. They're just
here to look at".... and blah blah told me some technical stuff I can't
remember. He said "they contact us if they find any problems." So the cards
on the doorknobs are REAL and NOT A SCAM. Whoever Robert M. spoke with on
the phone at RI Energy just didn't know what was going on.

Just wanted to get to the bottom of this and update everyone.

Best,
Lisa Rigby

On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM Lisa Rigby <iris.rigby at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok I want to follow up on this because I've called RI Energy, the
> Providence police, and again the "scam" number on the card. This appears to
> be a mixup with National Grid handing over gas services to RI Energy.
> That's why when I made that first appointment with the card on the door -
> that number is handled by people employed by National Grid and they're told
> to say "This is RI Energy." But RI Energy knows nothing about these
> inspections.
>
> BTW - RI Energy told me that the woman who was so casual and told me
> "sounds like you have a fun life" - that actually WAS them and a legitimate
> appointment that they never showed up for. The guy who came by in May with
> the card on the door and the scam number - that was likely National Grid
> doing something as RI Energy but they're getting their lines and paperwork
> crossed.
>
> If I find out anything more I'll let you know. I do not think this was
> someone casing the house or anything.
>
> --Lisa Rigby
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 10:44 AM Lisa Rigby <iris.rigby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is scary. I had a gas inspection guy come by in May, after I made an
>> appointment calling the number you gave! I think it was from a card on the
>> door. Anyway the guy who came for the appointment was probably in his 60's
>> and very large and in a noticeably bad mood. Showed him into the basement
>> and he spent a couple of minutes there and left. Then I get a LETTER in the
>> mail from National Grid saying "call us to schedule a gas inspection." I
>> called the number to tell them I already had this done in May. The woman on
>> the phone says they have no record of any inspection being done. She was
>> actually very casual and noted that the music I had on in the background
>> "sounds cool" and told me "you sound like you have a fun life"!! Hahaha...
>> I said actually we do. I know this all sounds bizarre.
>>
>> Anyway, I rescheduled with them and I said - "hey I don't care if you
>> come here every week. We both work from home so there's someone here 100%
>> of the time. Come every day if you want." She laughed. Nobody ever showed
>> up for the second appointment. This was in August.
>>
>> I don't know who was at my house but burglars must be getting older cause
>> as I said, this guy looked to be retirement age. I actually said to my
>> husband "if he's in such bad mood then maybe he needs to think about
>> retiring." No one has ever robbed or broken into my house - I believe it's
>> because we're home 100% and the house is never empty. We also often have
>> multiple cars in our driveway.
>>
>> --Lisa Rigby
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 10:08 AM Robert Mathiesen <rmath13 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yesterday or the day before I found an orange doorknob card claiming to
>>> be from Rhode Island Energy, claiming that federal regulations required an
>>> inspection of our gas line and giving a number (1-800-815-7050) to call to
>>> make an appointment to allow someone to access our gas meter inside our
>>> house.
>>>
>>> Something about the card set off alarm bells, so I called RI Energy
>>> (1-855-743-1101) to ask whether the card really was from them.  The
>>> representative I talked with could find no internal record of any such
>>> cards being distributed by them, and also told me that the phone number on
>>> the card has been associated with other scams in the past.
>>>
>>> Neighbors, if you got such a card, I recommend you ignore it.  If you
>>> already made such an appointment, you might want to cancel it.
>>>
>>> Robert
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Summit mailing list
>>> Summit at sna.providence.ri.us
>>> http://sna.providence.ri.us/mailman/listinfo/summit_sna.providence.ri.us
>>> SNA Website: http://sna.providence.ri.us/
>>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sna.providence.ri.us/pipermail/summit_sna.providence.ri.us/attachments/20251020/defe6391/attachment.htm>