Scam Alert: Marion County Warns of Suspicious Emails that Appear to be Official

OCALA, FL (352today.com) – An email that looks official, with a recognizable name and title, asking for an exorbitant amount of money, may not be what it seems.

Back in May, the Marion County public relations department sent out a scam alert notifying citizens that individuals were engaging in an email phishing scam that appeared to be sent from county employees, asking residents and applicants for large amounts of money and including an official-looking invoice within the body of the email.

 Targeted scams

The Growth Services department has been a frequent target of the scam, but multiple county departments have had to email their rosters of departments and applicants that there have been suspicious emails sent out that appeared to be from Marion County, said Chuck Varadin, Marion County growth services director.

The most recent incident took place Monday, said Varadin, where everyone in the Development Review department received an email. On Monday mornings, Marion County has Development Committee Review meetings, and all of the applicants who were part of the meeting received an email that said that they needed to pay $5,000 to participate in the meeting. The email had Varadin’s name and title in the email.

Red flags

“One of the things to look at, especially with scams, is the email title,” said Varadin. “It ended in dot USA (.usa). Our email always ends in marionfl.org. We also don’t send out invoices. We would normally send out a link for people to go to and pay.”

Another red flag is that the county doesn’t charge thousands of dollars. Usually the fees are much less, in the neighborhood of $50, and citizens and residents have the ability to go to the county’s website and see the fees that are being charged by the county, said Varadin. If there are any questions, citizens should contact Marion County if they receive a suspicious email. If the email address has a comma or its body includes an invoice, it’s more than likely not from Marion County.

Marion County’s offices are within the jurisdiction of the City of Ocala, and a case is on file with the Ocala Police Department.

If a resident has a question they can call the county office, but if there’s an invoice attached to the email, it’s not going to be from the county, said Varadin.