Fake “Fire Marshal” Scams Business In Bucks County
by Alex Lloyd Gross
The phone rings and the voice on the other end tells you it’s the fire marshal and he is not happy. You failed to get required testing and consequences could be severe. Maybe a fine or the loss of a business license. You need to pay NOW. Simply get a money card or pay them in bitcoin. Maybe it’s a text message instead.
Police in Middletown Twp. say that a business fell victim to this scam. They had an employee that got a text from their “boss” instructing them to take money and go to a random smoke shop and deposit it into a bitcoin machine. The employee did as they were instructed to do. They never called their boss to verify. They thought it was from the Fire Marshal or their boss and they thought the money transaction was legitimate to pay the fine or fees.
It gets worse. The “boss” told them to take $600.00 from their own money to deposit it into the bitcoin machine to cover additional fees. The employee did this as well. Total scam was $2600.00.
When they told the boss, the boss was not too happy. According to Middletown police, The solvability of this is about zero percent. The money is gone and the perpetrators are not able to be identified. Bitcoin has never been a valid form of payment to the Fire Marshal office. These scammers are extraordinarily convincing, but do not get sucked into their contrived urgency. Call the FM office, call your boss, confirm the requests with known people and offices before you part with any money.