ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – Ameren says scam artists are at it again. Carole Hunt with Ameren Services says their customers are being approached in person, via email or given flyers and told that President Obama has a program in place that will credit or pay up to $1500 to their utility bill.

But there are no government funds for this, and Ameren is concern that customers are giving scam artist their personal information. She says in some cases, customers are actually paying for someone to file this information for them.

900 Ameren customers in Missouri and Illinois have fallen victim to the identify thieves.

Hunt says never give your personal information to someone requesting it and be safe and use Ameren authorized payment methods. Also she says never give banking information, credit, debit card, or social security numbers, to anyone over the phone or to anyone in an email or to anyone who shows up in person and claims to be collecting information so that they can make a utility payment for you.

Ameren employees carry photo identification including their name, employee number an official Ameren logo.

The scam first surfaced in Mid-May but Hunt says it has surfaced again. In the latest incident, Ameren quickly alerted the targeted customers and was able to minimize the number of customers effected.