Neighborhood Council members have been targeted lately by scammers trying to get funds from the board or from individual Council members. Read about the types of scams that have happened so far, and how to avoid spending your Council funds – or your own money! – on one of these cons.

“UNPAID VENDOR” SCAM

Sometime the scammer will pretend that they represent a vendor who has not been paid for their services. They will ask a board member to cut a check or get a money order using NC funds, and mail it to an address.

It can be difficult to distinguish fraudulent requests like this from real requests for payment from vendors your Council actually worked with, especially if you are new to your board. Sometimes you can simply ask the rest of your board if they recognize the vendor name – if they don’t, then ignore the request.

If you and your board think the request for payment might be genuine, but no one is sure that this is a vendor you have used, you still should not send any money to the requester.

Instead, tell the person who wrote to you that you cannot make payment without a detailed invoice with dates and an itemized description of services provided. Explain to them that no single individual board member can authorize expenditures of City funds, so any invoice they give you (if they can provide one) will have to first be approved by a vote of the board, before it then moves on to a review by the City Clerk team that oversees Neighborhood Council funding. A scammer will probably not be able to provide an invoice of the kind you asked them for, and they will drop their scheme.

For additional security, you may also share any emails from unknown vendors with Your EmpowerLA representative, so they can assist you with reviewing the request, to see if it is genuine.

 

GIFT CARD / ITUNES CARD SCAM

Other times, a scammer will email a board member asking them to use either NC funds or their own personal funds to purchase gift cards or iTunes cards, then email photographs of the numbers on the cards (which will allow the scammer to use the cards for online purchases.)

The tricky thing is, often these emails appear to come from a fellow Neighborhood Council member. The name of someone you know will appear in the sender field, and unless you click it to see what the actual email address of the sender is, the email appears to be coming from this person that you know and trust.

This is called phishing. Masquerading as someone else to send an email is, unfortunately, very easy. All a scammer needs to do is go into email settings and enter the name of the person you are pretending to be in the From field, and then all their email appears to come from the person they are impersonating.

One important thing to keep in mind is that no matter who seems to be asking you to do it, Neighborhood Council funds cannot be used to buy gift cards (see page 16 of the NC Funding Policy and Guidelines booklet.) However, you should never use your own personal funds to buy gift cards in this situation, either.

If you think a fellow Neighborhood Council member is asking you to buy gift cards – or if you get any other request from someone who seems to be a board member asking you to pay for something with your own money or with Council funds – do not spend any money. Instead, call that person on the phone. Ask if they sent that email, and let that person know they may have been the victim of an identity theft. Then please forward the scam email to your EmpowerLA representative, so they can help prevent other Neighborhood Council members falling victim to this kind of fraud.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET SCAMMED

If you were the victim of a scam like this that took your own personal funds, your bank (if you used a debit card) or your credit card company will have a fraud department that can help you get reimbursement.

Call them to let them know what happened, and be prepared to give them a copy of the scam emails, as well as the transaction date and amount of any payments you made. Reimbursement can take a few weeks for your bank or credit card company to process, as they will need to conduct an investigation.