Walton County Planning Department Warns of Wire-Transfer Email Scam
Walton County officials are warning residents and businesses, including those in Freeport, about fraudulent emails that falsely claim to come from the county Planning Department and ask recipients to wire money. The department says it will never request funds by wire transfer.
The advisory went out Oct. 19 through the county’s News Flash and the Walton County Board of County Commissioners’ Facebook page. According to the county, any email requesting a wire transfer and claiming to be from the Planning Department, the Office of Short-Term Vacation Rental Registration, or any other Walton County office is fraudulent.
There is a way to check whether a message is genuine. The county says all legitimate Planning Department invoice-related emails are generated from “[email protected]”, and every Walton County email address ends with “@mywaltonfl.gov.” Any other address or domain should be treated as suspicious.
Residents who receive an unexpected wire-transfer request should not click any links or open any attachments, should not provide personal or financial information, and should mark the email as phishing or spam before deleting it. Anyone who is unsure of an email’s authenticity should contact the Planning Department directly rather than replying to the message — at (850) 267-1955 or [email protected].
Impersonation scams targeting area residents have circulated before. The Walton County Sheriff’s Office previously warned of a phone scam posing as ankle-monitoring agents that targeted the families of arrested individuals, and of a separate jury-duty scheme impersonating a real sergeant.
Originally reported by the Walton County Planning Department. Image: Walton County.
