As the week came to a close last Friday, two Frederick County residents were in for a rude awakening. They each had received emails containing personal information relating to land-use or rezoning permits they were pursuing through the county.

Kimberly Gaines, head of Livable Frederick Planning & Design, explained one of the prospective victims was told they needed to immediately wire $1,800 dollars to the county. If they failed to, the email claimed their permit could get bogged down and delayed.

The only problem is, according to Gaines, the county doesn’t ask residents to wire money. Instead, it has a special user portal to handle transactions. “The county would never ask that anyone would wire money for an application…and when we accept an application, fees are charged and paid through the portal,” Gaines said.

Excerpt of the scam email sent to a Frederick County resident. The resident's private information has been censured for privacy purposes.

What to look for

This all comes as the FBI has warned citizens of an email scam sweeping the country. As soon as the county was notified by the two residents, Gaines said Frederick officials reached out to other landowners seeking similar permits. They warned residents to be on the look out for various red flags.

The emails looked convincing, Gaines explained, pointing out they even seemed to use the correct jargon and business terminology. Residents can spot scam emails by checking the address, Gaines explained, as multiple different emails were uncovered. Real county emails should include, “FrederickCountyMD.gov.”

Even the amount demanded in one of the emails, $1,800, could be seen as legitimate, Gaines explained. “It’s not such an outlandishly large amount of money that someone is going to immediately pick up the phone and say, ‘Oh my gosh, Frederick County, are you really going to charge me $30,000 for a rezoning,’” Gaines said.

Another red flag she said to watch out for was a false sense of urgency, particularly any threats about delays. She warned residents to reach out right away if they feel off about any request being made in an email. “Some of what we saw on Friday was a property owner being told… ‘If you don’t pay this invoice right now, then your property is not going to be considered by the planning commission,’” Gaines said.

A fake invoice sent by scammers, demanding $4,850 to be paid immediately.

How could this happen?

Gaines explained permits and their related information are publicly accessible, creating a double edged sword in this situation.

When a resident seeks to rezone their land, the county notifies the surrounding neighbors. This serves the purpose of allowing the community to inform if the land-use change is in accordance with the desires of the people living there. “We want people to know about proposed rezonings because we want them to be part of the review process, we want them to come to the public hearings before the planning commission and county council,” Gaines said.

At the same time, it also means the enterprising scammer can find the information on the internet, which Gaines said may be how they identified their targets. Based on her own evaluation, she went so far as to say it looked as if AI may have been used in the creation of the emails.

Gaines clarified there is no charge associated with the comprehensive rezoning because it is one part of an entire process. In the case of piecemeal rezoning, where at times there can be a fee, it is paid at the beginning of the process. “You’re not at a stage where you're ready to go to a hearing and all of a sudden you’re being pulled off an agenda,” Gains explained.

Moving Forward

Gaines said in her experience with the county, Frederick has never faced something like this before. The county will need to look inward, she explained, to see if there is anything they can do better if there is a next time.

Ultimately, she said it will be a balancing act. She wants the public to be informed and be able to comment on zoning changes to their community, but now there is the concern that scammers could use that public information maliciously.