Mt. Juliet residents and business owners are being hit with what look like official city bills in their inboxes, but city leaders say they are pure fiction.
On Monday, city officials warned that fraudulent emails and invoices are circulating that appear to come from the Planning & Zoning Commission. The messages tell people to pay via email or an attached invoice, urging quick action. The city is just as blunt in response: do not click links, do not reply, and definitely do not send money.
The advisory went out on the city’s Facebook page, where officials posted screenshots of the spoofed invoices and doubled down on the warning, according to Facebook. The scam appears to match a nationwide phishing campaign the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center flagged in March, which says criminals are “leveraging publicly available permit information to identify potential victims,” per IC3.
How the scam works
According to the IC3 advisory, scammers zero in on people with active land-use or zoning requests, pulling real case numbers, property addresses and the names of local officials to dress up their bogus invoices. The advisory says the fake bills often demand payment by wire transfer, cryptocurrency or peer-to-peer apps, a setup that makes it less likely victims will call City Hall to double check.
The same notice warns that the emails may sport official-looking logos and familiar formatting, which can make them feel routine to anyone already juggling permit paperwork. Because of that, IC3 recommends confirming any payment demand directly with the municipality, using a verified phone number or the city’s official website, instead of anything listed in the email itself.
What residents should do
If an unexpected invoice lands in your inbox, treat it like a live wire: do not reply, do not open attachments, and do not send funds. Instead, save the message and its full email header so investigators can see exactly where it came from.
To verify any fee or invoice, call the city using the contact information on the City of Mt. Juliet website rather than responding directly to the sender. If you were targeted or lost money, officials urge you to file a complaint with the FBI’s IC3 and report the incident to the FTC. You can also contact local police to create an official report.
City leaders stress that they will not send surprise payment demands from off-site email addresses or ask for wire or cryptocurrency transfers for routine permit processing. They encourage residents and businesses to save screenshots and email headers and share suspicious messages with a contractor, attorney or the city itself so investigators have the details they need to track the fraud and help protect other applicants.
