Tim Scott Is Fundraising By Emailing People That Their Heat Will Be Cut Off

A week into December, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is emailing residents that their heat is about to get cut off — except the alarmist messages from his campaign are actually just misleading fundraising pitches.

“Your heat will be turned off. Emergency Notice,” reads an unsettling email notification a South Carolina resident received on their phone on Wednesday.

After clicking on the alert, it leads to an email with the same subject line, “Your heat will be turned off.”

It’s only after opening the email itself that it becomes clear that this isn’t an emergency overdue heating bill. It’s Scott’s campaign asking for money.

Here’s a screenshot of the email notification received by this South Carolina resident and provided to HuffPost:

And here’s a couple screenshots of the email from Scott’s campaign, with the same subject line.

“Biden has crippled our patriotic oil & gas industry and every American is paying the price,” reads the email. “Many have been FORCED to turn off the heat in their homes because the prices are simply too high, leaving families without warmth during the winter.”

It urges readers to take a survey on whether it’s time to increase drilling for oil and gas. It doesn’t matter how you respond: All of the links take you to the same page asking for money for Scott’s campaign.

A spokesperson for Scott’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why they would try to scare South Carolina residents into thinking their heat was about to get turned off, in December, in order to get them to open a fundraising email.

Ironically, the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs recently warned residents that utility scams tend to pop up this time of year.

“Utility imposters will tell you that your bill is late and your power will be cut off immediately, if you don’t pay right now,” reads a Nov. 24 article on a local South Carolina news site. “But officials with the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs says don’t fall for it.”