The annual signs of winter holidays are approaching; decorated homes, celebrations with loved ones — and a surge in fraudulent phone calls by scammers who impersonate Southern California Edison employees.

Utility Scam Awareness Day takes place each November just as phone scam activity typically increases, and electricity, water and gas utilities nationwide ramp up their efforts to help customers stop scams during the holiday season.

“Scammers often take advantage of people seeking help to pay their electric bills,” said Randy White, SCE’s manager of Physical Security. “One customer reported callers claiming they work with Edison on a COVID-19 relief program.” If she sent the callers half of what she owed, White said, they would pay the other half. She learned the call was a hoax after she’d sent the scammers $100.

In another case, Sandra Camacho of Long Beach believed her callers were from SCE because “they did everything exactly the way it is when you call [SCE] customer service,” including putting her on hold with background music and then apologizing for the delay.

They told Camacho a technician would arrive in 40 minutes and that she needed to make “an advance payment to stop the disconnection,” she said. She paid several hundred dollars using a bar code number the scammers gave her, which was linked to a prepaid card in their possession.

The next day, the scammers called back demanding she “pay off the rest of the bill.” That’s when she realized the callers weren’t from SCE.

Customer reports to SCE of attempted and successful phone scams rose more than 40% last November and December, compared to the same period in 2019.

So far this year, SCE customers report being defrauded of more than $590,000 — surpassing the $426,000 reported as lost to scammers in all of last year.