CEO Corner

Simply locking the doors every night is not enough to keep a business safe. Every day scammers are finding new ways to try and get your personal information. Whether you have received a call from someone claiming to have a prize for you if you provide them with money up-front; or a caller pressuring you to pay them with a gift card. Scammers are getting more sophisticated by the day. Business as usual is no longer an option.

Beginning February 1, White River Valley Electric Cooperative (WRVEC) enacted a new process for taking credit card payments over the phone. After addressing all your needs, your friendly Member Representative will transfer you to a secure automated system that encrypts your credit card data. This process adds additional security for you, our members, and aids in our compliance to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI.

PCI is a set of rules and regulations that tells companies how to handle sensitive payment data and other identifiers in credit cards. Major companies you trust to do business with every day, go to great lengths to keep member information safe. Following PCI and other security protocols, White River Valley Electric Cooperative utilizes a proven system to make sure your information is protected to the highest standards available in today’s business world.

In addition to these changes, we want to remind of you of things you can do to keep your information safe:

• Know how scammers tell you to pay. Our cooperative will never ask customers to obtain a pre-paid credit card or cryptocurrency to make immediate payments.
• Stop and talk to someone you trust. Caller ID from scammers can closely resemble, or even use the phone number for WRVEC. If in doubt, hang up immediately and call our Member Service Representatives at 417-335-9335.

The fastest way to make a payment with the co-op remains through SmartHub, but if you prefer to call in, know we have put a system in place to protect your personal information.