By Joseph Back

Some people do honest work for a living, others are more like Professor Moriarity of Sherlock Holmes fame, using their skills for amassing ill gotten gain.

For honest Cottage Grove taxpayers, it means a portion of their taxes were paid out to a scammer, rather than for the intended purpose of legitimate infrastructure work.

As a result, the FBI is now involved, endeavoring to follow the electronic footprints of whoever made off with approximately $1.276 million in taxpayer funds via fraudulent wire transfer. With fraud punishable by up to 20 years in prison as well as fines (30 years if affecting a financial institution) per Chapter 18 of the U.S. Code, fraud is defined online as “the “intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to party with something of value or to surrender a legal right,” per Merriam-Websters Dictionary. A request for comment or update on the ongoing investigation was not returned in time for press, while the details of payment are contained in the city payment ledger.

Using the cover of an otherwise legitimate payment obligation for sanitary sewer construction in southeast Cottage Grove, the scam started in early October with a sham email to the city accounting specialist, only being discovered on December 22, thus allowing enough time for the scammer(s) to transfer almost all of the funds from where they were deposited by the City to elsewhere.

Payment one for the South Sanitary Sewer Project was approved October 20 for for $498,746.61, and then again November 3 for a similar amount. Payment two for $813,250.35 was approved November 17.

Coming up again to the Council December 1, another payment two was approved for $813,250.35, ostensibly to the same firm. A third payment was approved December 8 for $462,810.98, the same being duplicated on December 15 and December 22 for a similar amount. The fraud was then discovered when the real firm (named Geislinger and Sons) contacted the city over non-payment, but with the city already out over $1.2 million and the money transferred from where it had been deposited by the city.

With separate payment numbers for each of the duplicated payments, little exists in the city bill ledger to tip the average reader to something off until January 5, when the second and third installments of “payment three” each occur one after the other, with separate pay numbers for an otherwise identical amount, and item listing. All approvals were made as part of standard “Accounts Payable” authorization by the Council as a separate item at each meeting. Prior to being discovered then, extra payouts totaling approximately $1.276 million were transferred via wire after a trick email convinced its reader to take the bait.

With the investigation still ongoing into the fraud from late last year and attempted partial recovery underway, how might readers protect themselves from a similar bait and switch aimed at their personal savings? Following are some condensed tips from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and general advice.

• Know the signs of a scammer, particularly one who claims to be from the government. FEMA will not contact or ask you to pay for a disaster related benefit, nor will the IRS ask for your personal information or threaten you by phone call, email, text, or social media. If someone claiming to be from the government is threatening you in relation to a benefit, taxes, or even a supposed IRS lawsuit, chances are it’s a scam.

• Regarding unsolicited IRS emails, tell the government.

Go to [email protected] gov. With their good name on the line and somewhat unpopular in the best of times, the real IRS has incentive to put an end to such scams–and you’ll be helping others.

• Be cautious when clicking on links. Building on the first two notes and regarding phishing scams, take your time. Hover over email links before clicking on them. If a different address shows up than what you see without hovering over the link, you might be getting directed to somewhere, you don’t intend.

• Don’t rush it. This cannot be emphasized enough. Scammers often rely on speed by using fear and emotion to short circuit critical thinking. What’s the rush?

• If you’re about to send money to claim a lottery prize in a foreign country, DON’T. Once the money’s gone it can be hard to recover, and you’re still on the hook at the bank for any fallout.

• Don’t rush to bail out relatives in foreign countries either. This goes back to the don’t rush it thing. Instead, verify they’ve traveled first (at the very least) and if you start getting impatient threats that are out of character for the relative in question, well, see above.

• Finally, stay up to date on your bank account balances.

Knowing if and when an unauthorized transaction is made can help clue you in to potential identity theft.

These are just a few of the more common ways that scammers trick people into parting with their hard earned money. Scams can change with the headlines and public awareness, as happened with several COVID -related scams at the outset of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, scam artists remain ever active, and adaptive. With that in mind, readers should know that a separate scam is currently ongoing regarding supposed jury duty summons from the U.S. Marshal Service.

Reportedly impersonating the federal agency and telling people they must pay for not reporting to jury duty or face arrest, such scare tactics are false, as the U.S. District Court makes makes clear.

“The U.S. Marshals will never call you regarding jury service nor will they ask you to pay for not attending jury service.” It seems that would be scammers, would rather con that do real work for a living.