- Home
- Town Code
- Departments
- Animal Control
- Assessor
- Building Department
- Constables
- Highway Department
- Historian
- Justice Court
- Parks and Recreation
- Planning Board
- Registrar, Birth & Death
- Senior Resources
- Sewer Department
- Smallwood Water District
- Staff Directory
- Town Board
- Tax Collector
- Town Clerk's Office
- Town Supervisor
- Transfer Station
- Zoning Board of Appeals
- Online FOIL Application
- Forms
- Help Wanted
- Comprehensive Plan
- Community Calendar
- Contact Us and Directions
- Bethel Local Dev Corp
- Legal Notices
- Newsletter
- Online Payments
- Photo Gallery
- Proposed Local Laws
- Streetlight Outage
- Town Board Zoom Recording
- Woodstock Festival
Fraud Alert Issued by NYS Dept. of State
The Division of Local Government Services Training Program is warning local governments to be aware of fraudulent invoices being sent to applicants before planning and zoning boards throughout NYS.
The Local Government Training staff have been receiving an increased number of reports of fraudulent activity surrounding land use review in communities across the state. These invoices appear to come from the municipality for increased project review costs.
Municipalities with regularly updated municipal websites are required by Open Meetings Law section 103(e) to upload applications and project files before planning and zoning boards to their municipal websites. These applications usually include information about applicants including names, physical addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.
Scammers have been utilizing this information to access and pull personal information from applications and project files to create and send fake invoices that appear to be from municipalities to applicants before the land use review boards for additional project review costs and/or for county referral fees.
DOS Recommendations:
To combat fraudulent activity and protect applicants, while adhering to the requirements of Open Meetings Law, the Division of Local Government Services recommends these actions:
- Redact email addresses, phone numbers and any other sensitive or financial information from application files before being made available to the public. Names of property owners and/or applicants and physical addresses are public records that should not be redacted and be available to the public.
- Post warnings of fraudulent activity on your municipal websites and remind applicants to reach out to the municipality if they receive any questionable correspondence from anyone representing a municipality.
- Make schedule of fees and other project review costs easy to access on municipal websites along with applications and other supporting documents.