FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — There have been four scam alerts this month on Fort Myers Beach, and the town sent out another one as this story was being worked on Monday.
Watch to hear about the scams and the red flags to look out for:
When Dennis Cooper got his credit card bill last month, he said there was a $220 charge from the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce.
He didn’t think much about it until his card was charged more than $1600 this month. That’s when he started to wonder if it was really the chamber.
“And as soon as he sent the information over to me, I knew something was wrong because they don’t even have the right address on it,” said Chamber President Jacki Liszak.
Liszak said that money never went to the chamber or the town. That it was fraud.
That’s just one of the scams this month. Town Manager Will McKannay said the town warned people about two other email scams and one scammer said they worked for the town and asked people to send money for unpaid permits or construction fees.
In another case, the town warned scammers put QR codes on parking signs that sent people to fake payment sites.
“They were all fraud. So, we right away wanted to inform the public,” McKannay said.
Then on Monday, the town said a scammer posing as the planning department sent a fake $4,800 invoice to a local business.
McKannay said Fort Myers Beach is being targeted right now.
“People are going through a lot of redevelopment. There’s a lot of financial transactions, transactions happening from low level to high level, and the demographics of our town also do lend to maybe them falling victim more to these types of things,” McKannay said.
Going forward, the town said more alerts and education are coming along with new tools to help identify scams faster. The town said scam red flags include payment requests outside of the town’s official portal, mismatched emails, spelling errors, and urgent requests.
The town said scammers are likely getting sensitive information from permit applications on their website.
