A Massachusetts developer received an email demanding $9,000 in fees he had already paid for an Auburn commercial project. He was immediately on guard.
Robert Branca received the fraudulent message concerning his Auburn project, according to reporting by the Worcester Business Journal. The email purported to come from an Auburn town planner and used the subject line “481 Washington Street – Site Plan Approval,” demanding payment for permit fees Branca said he had already settled. The sender address was [email protected] — close enough to pass a glance, but not a government domain. Branca was immediately on guard and had already paid the required fees.
Branca and his firm, Branded Realty Group, plan to build a Dunkin’ on the Washington Street property, a site that was formerly a gas station requiring environmental cleanup. The project calls for a 6,400-square-foot retail building that includes a 2,400-square-foot Dunkin’ location and 4,000 square feet of additional retail space, and Branca and Branded Realty Group must certify the cleanup with the town and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, conducting property tests to confirm compliance before moving forward.
How Close the Scam Came to Working
Branca said the scam email demanded $9,000.
The FBI says criminals leverage publicly available permit information in these schemes.
Auburn and Worcester Respond
Auburn has posted its own warning about officials being impersonated to request payment tied to planning and zoning permits.
Worcester has taken similar action. The city added a scam notice to its planning and regulatory services website. The city’s page says application fees may be paid by check or through its online portal.
The Scam Spreads Beyond One Town
The municipal permit fee scam has affected Worcester, West Boylston, Leicester and Auburn, according to the Worcester Business Journal’s reporting. In West Boylston, an applicant received a scam email on September 9 demanding $7,600 in outstanding administrative fees, even though the applicant had already received planning board approval and paid all fees owed. That email threatened a cease-and-desist order unless the fees were paid.
The scam emails typically include accurate planning and zoning information, such as addresses, case numbers and officials’ names, and threaten permitting delays or obstacles unless applicants pay immediately, the Worcester Business Journal reported. The FBI described the fraudulent messages as using professional language, formatting and imagery resembling government communications, and noted that the addresses behind them originate from non-governmental domains such as @usa.com. The FBI issued a broader warning about the scheme in March, saying criminals impersonating city and county officials have been soliciting fraudulent payments for planning and zoning permits nationwide, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
A Pattern Playing Out Across Massachusetts
In Acushnet, officials reported at least two incidents in which people impersonating town employees contacted applicants and asked for payments, part of a scam involving fake invoices sent to people with pending permits or applications before town boards, according to SouthCoast Today.
On the South Shore, a Hingham resident avoided losing $3,000 by calling town hall before wiring money on a suspicious invoice in an incident Hingham police reported on January 30, and Braintree’s planning director confirmed a handful of the department’s applicants had been contacted by scammers claiming to work for the town, according to the Patriot Ledger. Braintree now warns that its planning department will never request fees by email or phone and requires all fees to be paid in person. Cohasset went further, pulling planning and zoning application documents from its website entirely in response to scams reported elsewhere.
