A Convincing New Scam Is Targeting South Shore Zoning and Planning Applicants. Here’s How It Works.
Fraudsters are mining public permit records to send fake invoices to people with active applications. State and federal law enforcement have now issued formal warnings.
When a Hingham homeowner in the middle of a Planning Board project received an emailed invoice for a permit fee, it didn’t look obviously wrong. She had recently paid a smaller fee to the town, so another bill wasn’t a surprise. But this one was larger, and something about it felt off — so she called Town Hall before sending a dollar. It was a scam. The sender’s address, according to Hingham police, stitched together the words “planning,” “hingham-ma,” and “usa.com” to look like it came from the town.
That near-miss is one local example of a phishing scheme that has been spreading across Massachusetts since late 2025 and is now drawing formal alerts from towns up and down the South Shore, the Massachusetts State Police, and the FBI. The scam is notable for how convincing it is: the emails reference real case numbers, real property addresses, and the real names of local officials. And the reason they can do that is uncomfortably simple — nearly all of that information is posted publicly, in the same board agendas and meeting packets that make local government transparent.
If you have an application in front of your town’s Zoning Board of Appeals or Planning Board, be skeptical of any email asking you to pay a fee — especially one that wants a wire transfer.
How the scam works
The target is anyone with an active land-use application. According to the FBI, victims receive an unsolicited email that cites their permit information, zoning application number, or property address, then instructs them to pay an invoice for “fees” tied to the application. Payment is demanded by wire transfer, a peer-to-peer app, or cryptocurrency — never a normal municipal payment method.
The emails are built to look official. The FBI’s advisory lists the common tells:
They contain accurate details about the application — property address, case number, and the true names of town officials.
They use professional language and imagery that mirrors real government correspondence, referencing review processes, board procedures, and local ordinances.
The sender address mimics a town department but comes from a non-governmental domain — the FBI specifically flagged addresses ending in “@usa.com.”
The message is often timed to land in the middle of an applicant’s real back-and-forth with the town.
An attached PDF invoice itemizes the “fees” and directs the applicant to request payment instructions by email rather than phone — a deliberate move to keep the victim from calling the office to check.
The email stresses urgency, warning that the permit will be delayed if payment isn’t made right away.
Who’s been hit
On the South Shore, two towns have gone on the record. Hingham issued a fraud alert after a resident reported the scam invoice described above, and the police department has warned that town payments can always be mailed or made in person — so any demand for immediate payment by wire transfer or a payment app should be treated as a red flag. Hingham’s experience also shows the scheme’s reach: detectives there were contacted by a police department in Florida investigating a similar case, whose own inquiry turned up forwarding email addresses using the same “hingham-ma,” “planning,” and “usa.com” construction. This is a coordinated operation, not a local prank.
Scituate has issued a formal public notice from its Zoning Board of Appeals. The town reported that residents received emails demanding a wire transfer to “finalize and formally execute” a Zoning Board decision — some sent not just to the applicant but to family members with similar email addresses — with an attached invoice bearing a copy of the town seal and an incorrect town address. Scituate’s notice stresses a point applicants should memorize: its ZBA does not charge any fee to issue, finalize, or release a decision.
This is not a South Shore problem alone. Formal alerts have gone out from Boston, Cambridge, Newburyport, New Bedford, Rochester, Dennis, Wayland, and Easthampton, among others. The FBI says victims have been identified nationwide.
Rochester officials made the point that’s easy to miss: as artificial intelligence tools get better, so do the scams, and small towns are being hit just as hard as big cities. Cambridge noted that the people targeted had all appeared at public meetings or regularly did business with the city — a strong sign the scammers are simply harvesting names from public records, exactly as Hingham’s “usa.com” case suggests.
The bottom line on legitimate fees
Every town alert says the same thing, and it’s the single most useful fact to remember: your town’s permitting offices will never ask you to pay a fee by wire transfer, gift card, Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, or cryptocurrency. Legitimate application fees go through established municipal channels — typically in person, by cash or check made out to the town. Many boards, including Scituate’s ZBA, don’t charge a fee to issue or release a decision at all.
How to protect yourself
Law enforcement guidance across the state and federal advisories converges on a few steps:
Don’t trust the trappings. The FBI warns not to assume an email is real just because it uses letterhead, a seal, an official’s name, or clean spelling and grammar.
Check the domain. A real municipal email ends in
.govor.us. Compare the sender’s full address against the one you’ve actually been corresponding with, and watch for extra characters or misspellings.Pick up the phone. Call the board or department using the number listed on the town’s official website — not a number or link from the email — and confirm whether any fee is actually owed.
Check the town website for notices about impersonation scams before acting on any payment request.
Never reply for “payment instructions.” The request to handle everything by email is itself a red flag.
If you’re targeted: the reporting guidance
If you receive one of these emails — or worse, if you’ve already paid — law enforcement wants to hear about it. Reporting helps investigators connect cases across town lines.
Report to your local police department. Notify the relevant town board as well so the incident is documented.
File with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. The FBI asks you to include the sender’s email address, the date of the email, any phone number provided, the date of your project’s scheduled hearing if applicable, the amount on the fraudulent invoice, the payment method requested, and any bank account information you were given.
The Massachusetts State Police Commonwealth Fusion Center is tracking the scheme and can be reached at 508-820-2233.
If you’ve suffered a financial loss, file a police report right away — the faster a wire transfer or payment is flagged, the better the chance of recovering funds.
Official notices and where to read more
Town of Hingham fraud alert: https://hingham-ma.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/2278
Hingham Police Department scam advisory: https://www.hpd.org/CivicAlerts.asp?CID=1
Town of Scituate ZBA notice: https://www.scituatema.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/3162
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center public service announcement (March 9, 2026): https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260309
Report suspected fraud: ic3.gov · Massachusetts State Police Commonwealth Fusion Center, 508-820-2233 · your local police department