Avista Scammer Comes Knocking

One of the Facebook Friends of my FF Becky McIntire Boifeuillet warned of an scam involving Avista that came knocking on her door: “Someone came to our house last night and said they were from Avista to check our windows, furnace & insulation to see if we qualified for Avista rebates. We asked for a business card and he had none. We told him we had already received rebates on our windows & furnace, he said the insulation was most important and he could just check it for… us. We said we were on our way out and he could come back today. Saw on the news Kootenai County has had 97 burglaries during daylight hours and some of them have had people saying they will do a service to try to get inside to case the place ahead of time. We called the police this morning and they checked with Avista and Avista does not have anyone going door to door. We’ll see if he shows back up today. Police said if he does for us to call 911.”

• DFO: Am I the only one who received a small box of those curlicue, energy-saving light bulbs in the last few days? Can’t figure out why I got them. No note of explanation. No bill.

Question: How do you know when someone’s trying to scam you?