When our employees access private property, some people question their credentials – with good reason. Scammers and thieves have been known to impersonate utility workers.

But many such visits are legitimate and legal. Under UniSource’s Rules and Regulations and Arizona law ARS 40-431, our technicians, troublemen, linemen, line locators and metering technicians must be granted access to private property during reasonable hours to perform duties that ensure safe, reliable service.

Our employees may need access to your property to read, maintain or exchange our electric or gas meters or to locate and mark underground electrical and gas facilities as requested by the Arizona 811 center.

Other times, our crews are investigating reports of downed power lines, outages, voltage quality or damage to our equipment or making equipment repairs or upgrades. Gas technicians might need to check for gas leaks in lines or meters or respond to emergency calls from customers.

For your safety and ours, here’s how you can identify our employees:

• Look for the UniSource logo on the person’s clothing, safety equipment and vehicle. Sometimes, but not always, our crews carry special electrical equipment and tools or are wearing a safety vest.
• Ask the reason for their visit and to see their identification. All UniSource employees must show their ID badge upon request. To protect our employees’ privacy, their names will not be shown on the badge.
• Call UniSource Customer Care directly at 877-837-4968 to verify whether crews are working nearby, or to verify the number displayed on a vehicle bearing our logo.

“Our employees will always identify themselves as company representatives and explain a reason for their visit. We will never solicit any type of sales or ask customers for any personal information,” said Amanda Rivero, Transmission & Distribution & Customer Service Supervisor.

All company vehicles display the UniSource logo along with a vehicle number. “When in doubt, customers are encouraged to call us and we can verify service at that location.”

Rivero noted that in most cases UniSource will attempt to provide advance notice of our visit when a meter is being exchanged. This is common if we need to shut off gas service and enter the home to check gas appliances before gas service is restored.

“Customers will receive a call and postcards by mail from us letting them know about the work and that they may experience a brief outage during the exchange,” Rivero said. However, some priority work does not allow for advanced notice and that is when you should contact us to verify our employees are working in their area.”

To learn more about how you can protect yourself against scammers, visit https://www.uesaz.com/field-workers/.