MANSFIELD TOWNSHIP — If a member of your township board suddenly contacts you asking for money, Mansfield Township has some advice that requires neither a fraud investigator nor an advanced degree in cybersecurity: don’t give them any damn money.
The small Iron County township has posted a warning that someone is using the names of township board members as part of a scam seeking money from residents. Township officials aren’t burying the message beneath six paragraphs of governmental language, either. Their warning gets directly to the point: “Warning! It has come to our attention that individual(s) have been using the name(s) of member(s) from the Township Board in a scamming scheme asking for money. DO NOT RESPOND TO THESE REQUESTS!!”
Exactly who is being impersonated isn’t clear. Mansfield Township has not publicly identified which board member or members are having their names used, nor has the township said whether the scammers are contacting people by telephone, text, email or some other method. The warning also doesn’t say what excuse the scammers are using to ask for money, how they want to be paid or whether anyone has actually fallen for the scheme.
What is clear is that Mansfield Township officials want residents to know that if somebody shows up electronically wearing the name of a local government official and asking for cash, that’s the point where the conversation should end.
The warning is particularly notable because Mansfield isn’t the first government in this little corner of the U.P. to deal with people pretending to be officials and demanding money recently. Just a few weeks ago, residents in nearby Crystal Falls were warned about scam callers falsely claiming to represent the Crystal Falls Police Department, FBI and U.S. Marshals Service.
That scam came with considerably more detail. Crystal Falls officials said the callers were demanding or soliciting money and, in some cases, directing people to purchase gift cards. Officials warned that legitimate law-enforcement agencies aren’t going to call residents and demand immediate payment, threaten them with arrest if they don’t cough up the money or tell them to head down to the store and start reading gift-card numbers over the telephone.
Because apparently we have reached a point in civilization where it is necessary to clarify that the FBI does not settle its accounts in Apple gift cards.
Crystal Falls officials also warned residents not to trust caller ID as proof that a call is legitimate. Scammers can “spoof” caller ID information, making a call appear to originate from an actual government agency even when the person on the other end is considerably less official and considerably more interested in separating Grandma from her checking account. Anyone receiving one of those calls was advised to hang up and contact the supposed agency directly using a verified telephone number rather than one supplied by the caller.
There is currently no evidence that the Mansfield Township scam and the Crystal Falls calls are connected, and the township hasn’t said they are. They do, however, put two government-impersonation scam warnings in the same small part of Iron County within a matter of weeks, which makes paying attention a pretty reasonable idea.
Michigan’s Attorney General’s Office says government impersonation scams can arrive by telephone, email or text, and scammers frequently rely on urgency, fear and official-looking information to get victims to act before they have time to think. The state says legitimate government agencies won’t demand money by telephone, text or email and won’t ask people to pay with gift cards, wire transfers, cryptocurrency or payment apps.
Mansfield Township’s warning is even easier to remember.
Somebody is using the names of township board members to ask people for money.
Don’t respond.
No gift cards. No payment apps. No panicked trip to the bank because somebody claiming to be from township government suddenly needs $800 before lunch. If you’re uncertain whether something actually came from Mansfield Township, the township’s official contact information is available directly through the township rather than whatever phone number, email address or link showed up in the suspicious message.
Scammers succeed because they manufacture just enough authority and urgency to get somebody moving before the obvious question gets asked: Does any of this shit make sense?
In Mansfield Township right now, that’s a particularly good question to ask.
