The Italian energy fraud market is very profitable for scammers, and it comprises the vast majority of all marketing calls in Italy. After hearing too many of our friends were scammed in the energy market, in this article we give you tips how to stay safe.
The energy scam market
The energy market in Italy, i.e. electricity and gas bills, is full of scams. How full? It created a €1.2 billion worth of damage to the Italian economy in the year of 2023, with a sharp yearly increase. Independent data shows that 97% of commercial phone calls in 2024 were frauds. I can confirm that this is about the same rate of scam calls for me personally.
How does the scam work?
In about half of these calls, the caller lies that he represents your current energy supplier. In other cases, they would give you a name of a ridiculous fictional institute, such as “The Central Energy Center” (“Ufficio centrale dell’energia“), and would tell you that there was a problem with registering your new energy contract or that your energy contract has expired.
What makes this scam market flourish is the fact that your full contract data is made public when you register to a new energy supply company. They use this partial information during the fraud calls, and try to get the missing personal info to seal a deal with unsuspecting victims. The calls are being recorded, and an oral consent could put you in legal complication.
How to avoid scams?
Hang up
The simplest way is to hang up immediately when they identify as an energy related company. Real energy companies do not call you for marketing or to change your contract.
Block the caller
After every such scam call, you should block their number, as they would try to call again very soon.
Do not share info
The scam caller sadly has a lot of your personal information. Some they acquired legally when your signed contract was added to the national energy contracts registrar, and the rest they dug up on the web with that info. Don’t feed the trolls, meaning do not give them further info nor confirm that info, as it would all be used against you, during this call or the future ones.
Never agree
Do not agree to any terms on the phone. If by any chance you think that it might be a true call (less than 3% chance) just ask for the address of their office and do it there. Alternatively, call the company yourself, with the official customer care number that you find on the official energy company website. Never use phones or emails that are supplied during these (scam) calls.
When will this nightmare end?
During the first couple of months after signing a new energy contract, there is a wave of continuous fraud calls to your personal phone number. In my case, it was about 10–15 calls per day.
The good news is that after blocking these numbers, it reduces to a couple per day. The fraudsters just give up on you, and move on to the next victim.
How to safely change the energy provider?
We wrote a whole post about How to cut your energy bills in Italy. To summarize it, the best way to safely change your energy provider is to choose it yourself, and proactively register, don’t let them contact you but rather do it yourself.
We chose Octopus Energy for our own home, and we highly recommend this company. Registering through our link will give you and us both a modest discount of about €30 from Octopus Energy. By doing so, you could save money while supporting us, so that we continue to write more such posts on our website:
https://octopusenergy.it/octo-friends/brazen-shoes-49
Stay safe 🐙
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