UPPER WEST SIDE — A local family-run dry-cleaning business fell victim to a phone scam and forked over nearly $2,000 to a fraudster who called up threatening to shut off the power, police said.
On June 17, just before 5 p.m., a man dialed up Spotmaster Cleaners on West 82nd Street and told the employee who answered that if the business didn't pay an outstanding Con Edison bill of $1,897, the utility would shut off its power, police said.
Spotmaster Cleaners is also known as Fang Cleaners because it still bears the sign of the former owner.
The employee went into a panic and called Kevin Pang, who co-owns the cleaners with his wife Gina, reporting that the lights in the business were flickering and that the caller ID said the number was from Con Edison, Pang explained.
Pang — who was in Long Island, where he commutes from daily and lives with his family — then answered a call from the man also showing the number listed as coming from Con Ed, he said.
Thinking of the evening rush to deliver laundry and dry cleaning to his dozens of customers, as well as how much his business depends on electricity, "I thought I had to do it," Pang said.
"It should have raised a red flag...I should have known better," he said. Pang kept insisting that he did not have an outstanding bill with the utility company, but the caller said it wasn't his department's job to verify that.
Pang then went to a local grocery store as instructed by the caller and paid cash for untraceable Green Dot debit cards, reading the numbers to the caller so he could collect the money, he said.
By that point, it was too late to call Con Edison to confirm the information, Pang said.
When the man called back the next morning to ask for more money, Pang realized it was a scam and tried to lure the caller to the store at a time when an officer from the 20th Precinct would be present. But the man refused to come inside, Pang said.
Similar scams have proved a persistent problem in the precinct and across the city, the NYPD reported. On the Upper West Side, the 20th Precinct has put out numerous alerts via Twitter, in newsletters and at community meetings to warn businesses and residents about anyone calling and asking for money over the phone.
Pang said he and his wife are hardworking people and that he feels foolish for being defrauded, noting that he's heard of other businesses also falling victim to the scam.
"It's horrible," he said.
Subscribe to DNAinfo's Upper West Side podcast:
