This week, the city of Eureka issued an alert warning residents that a fraudulent email scheme is afoot. Community members have received emails from scammers impersonating the city’s Planning and Development Services Department, attaching fake invoices and asking that money be wired to a fake city account.
“This email, sent from planning.eurekaca@usa.com, is not associated with the City of Eureka,” a statement released by the city on Tuesday says. “The scam involves a fraudulent invoice attached to the email, requesting a wire transfer payment. The invoice falsely uses the City of Eureka logo and includes incorrect contact information. These fraudulent emails are designed to appear official but are not affiliated with the City of Eureka.”
The statement goes on to note that “all official City of Eureka emails end with @eurekaca.gov or @ci.eureka.ca.gov” and encourages people to “be cautious of any communication claiming to be from the city that does not follow this format.”
“If you receive a suspicious email about payment for a planning or building application or have doubts about an email’s authenticity, please contact the Development Services Department immediately at 707-441-4160,” the city said. It also urged anyone who had wired money or who thinks they may have been victims of a scam to contact the Eureka Police Department at 707-441-4044.
City Manager Miles Slattery told the Times-Standard that two such fraudulent emails had been received by individuals working within the city’s planning processes, the first in February of this year.
“It looks like they’re looking at our agenda, and then, based on that, they’re sending fraudulent bills to folks, the applicants,” Slattery said, noting that the city’s Planning Commission agendas are public record and the scammers don’t seem to have any particularly specialized knowledge of the city’s processes.
“It’s public knowledge as to who the applicant is and what the application is for,” Slattery said. “To be honest with you, it’s pretty juvenile. The billing that they put together is just a background with our logo. I can see how people can misconstrue it, but it doesn’t seem that these folks are very high-tech or very savvy as to our billing process. It doesn’t look anything like what we do.”
Slattery said that the city is currently notifying permit applicants about the fraudulent emails and encouraging anyone who has any information on the fraud scheme to contact EPD.
Kay Lopez, communications project manager for the city, told the Times-Standard that the most current recipient of this scam email wired money to the fraudulent account.
“There were two invoices sent using the City of Eureka logo illegally and requesting urgent payment,” Lopez said. “There has been, unfortunately, one incident of that payment being paid immediately.”
Lopez said that the city would like to remind community members that its door is always open and city staff is always a phone call away should they need guidance on matters like negotiating planning invoices real or fraudulent. “If there’s ever any question, even if it is a legit email, we want to be able to walk through our information to make sure the public has a clear understanding.”
The EPD confirmed that they were currently investigating the case but could not comment further on the subject. The Times-Standard reached out to the city’s Development Services Department, but was unable to secure a comment in time for publication.
Earlier this month, Humboldt County sent an alert warning of a similar scam targeting county planning applicants.
“In this scam, fraudulent emails claim to be from the Humboldt County Planning Commission and may identify as a current and/or former employee,” a statement from the county issued Nov. 7 said. “The scammer tells the victim that they have reviewed and approved their permit application and an ‘application approval fee’ is required before approval can be finalized.
“The email appears to mine information from publicly accessible documents such as agendas and related application documents and uses that information to include very specific details about the applicant’s project into the message.”
Similar fraudulent emails were sent to planning applicants in Rio Dell earlier this year. Lopez told the Times-Standard that it’s likely that Eureka would be looking for ways to collaborate with other local governments on ongoing education efforts to help community members avoid fraud.
Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.
