Jeff Ashby of Mission Viejo was heading out the door to run errands when a call came in.

Alissa Hazard was in a hurry in the grocery store checkout line when the call came into her cellphone. “I picked up the call. It was a recorded message saying it was Southern California Edison and, ‘You have a past-due balance, and to avoid service interruption, pay now by pressing one.’

The winter holidays are here, and with the hustle and bustle surrounding us, our guard is often down, opening the door to fraudsters ...