Protecting Your Information: How the City Is Responding to Phishing Scams

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and the City of Encinitas is taking steps to help protect residents, businesses and permit applicants from online scams.

The FBI and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) have reported a nationwide scam targeting planning and permit applicants with fraudulent invoices and payment requests. Unfortunately, Encinitas applicants have also been targeted, and some individuals have lost money after sending wire transfers to scammers.

Taking steps to reduce the risk

The City has been following guidance from federal authorities and communicating with customers about legitimate City communication and payment channels. We are also taking additional steps to help prevent scammers from obtaining information they can use to impersonate City staff.

As part of these efforts, the City's Planning and City Clerk departments have updated procedures to redact customer email addresses and other contact information from public staff reports when appropriate. This additional safeguard is intended to make it more difficult for scammers to use publicly available information to create convincing, targeted phishing emails.

City staff across departments are also working with the City's Information Technology team to identify opportunities to strengthen how personal information is handled in public documents.

How you can protect yourself

Scammers can make fraudulent emails look convincing, including using the names and information of real City employees or referencing legitimate permits and projects.

Remember: The City of Encinitas will never request payment by email, wire transfer, cryptocurrency or payment apps.

If you receive an unexpected payment request:

• Do not click links or open attachments in the email.
• Do not respond to the message or send payment.
• Verify the request through the City's Customer Self-Service (CSS) portal.
• When in doubt, call the City directly at (760) 633-2710 to confirm whether a payment request is legitimate.

The City will continue to review and strengthen its practices to help protect community information and reduce the risk of cyber scams.

When in doubt, pause and verify before you pay.