The town is warning people to beware of a phishing scheme targeting individuals who are applying for permits through the Office of Planning and Building.
According to Planning and Building Director Chris Ryan, the scams have come in waves the last three months or so, first targeting applicants before the Planning Board and, more recently, the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Historic District Commission.
“Clearly someone is mining our agendas and case loads so they can directly appeal to these people,” he said.
To the unassuming eye, the emails look authentic: they include a project address, the name of applicants, and — in the most recent wave — a sign-off from Ryan. But they don’t come from a town email address, and they contain inaccurate information as far as what the town would be looking for in an application. And, further to the point, the town never requests payment outside the online application portal system (with few exceptions, such as additional cost incurred due to a peer review).
In one incident, a Belmont resident renovating a home on Broad Street reported to police that he received an email from someone claiming she worked for the Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals. The email asked the resident to wire $31,175 to an account provided by the woman, , according to Belmont Police logs.
According to Belmont Police Lt. Paul Cowing, it does not appear the person behind the email was ever actually a town employee.
“On July 20th we shared a fraud alert from the FBI as these incidents seem to be growing and our community should remain vigilant,” Cowing wrote in response to an inquiry from The Voice. “Residents should verify suspicious emails directly with the town department involved before sending any payments. We encourage people to reach out to us if they believe they have been a target of any type of fraud.”
Ryan said that in the last three months five or six applicants have called about the phishing scam. All are immediately forwarded to the Police Department, he said.
“This is kind of new to me,” Ryan said. “It may have happened in communities across the country in years past, but it hasn’t … raised its level to be on my radar.”
To combat the phishing, the town plans to put large disclaimers or warning banners on any pages where people may be looking for information on permit applications, letting people know to question any email that claims to come from the town and requests payment. Always call the relevant town department if you’re unsure, he said.
The forthcoming switch to OpenGov will also help to mitigate the problem, according to Ryan.
“We’re going exclusively to an online permitting platform — we hope it will be known by all of our customers so this will be less of a problem and they can easily identify these scams going forward.”
