Brookfield PD Warns Business Owners of Inspection Scam

There is a fairly new scam being run across the United States involving restaurants and fake health inspectors. The scam has been reported in New York, but not yet in Connecticut. 

The way the scam works is a restaurant receives a phone call from a person claiming to be a health inspector. The "inspector" gives the restaurant a date (or series of dates) on which he will be visiting to conduct an inspection. The inspector also tells the restaurant staff that they will soon be receiving an automated call from the Department of Health, and that they should write down the number they will receive from the automated call. Shortly after the automated call is received another person calls and asks for the number; the person then sets a time for the appointment with the restaurant staff. No one ever calls back and no money is lost, so the scam is not apparent and therefore rarely reported. 

The reason for this scam is to provide the scammers with a "verified" phone number for online auction and posting sites. With a "Phone Verified Account" on an auction site the scammer is able to bypass many of the restrictions in place to combat fraudulent postings and listings. The scammer will use the restaurant's phone number as their own when registering on the online auction site, knowing the site will use a computer to call the number and provide a multi-digit number, with the idea being that the person registering at the online site will then log in to the site and enter the number, thereby "verifying" their phone number. 

The use of a land line is required because most online sites of this nature will not accept cellular phone numbers or VOIP (voice-over IP) numbers in order to reduce fraud. 

It is suggested that restaurants and other businesses runs a Google search with their land line phone number and see if any hits are returned for online auction sites, or any online sites at all that are not associated with the business.