Humboldt County Warns of Email Scam Targeting Well Permit Applicants
Humboldt County, California, has issued a public notice regarding a new email scam targeting well permit applicants. Fraudulent emails, falsely claiming to be from an 'Executive Director of Humboldt County Planning & Building Department Administration,' instruct applicants to pay a 'standard default application fee of $5,960' for their well permit. The scammer demands this fee be settled before final permit issuance and asks recipients to reply to the email for settlement instructions. The county's Information Technology Security team has confirmed that Humboldt County's system has not been hacked; instead, scammers are using publicly available information from the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation’s State Clearing House website. The County of Humboldt explicitly states that its Planning & Building Department and Division of Environmental Health do not require such a fee and will never ask for large sums of cash, wire transfers to private accounts, credit card payments over the phone, or...