Whatcom County officials are warning residents and property owners to be on guard after receiving reports of scammers sending fraudulent invoices that carry the county's official logos. The scam is particularly sophisticated: according to Whatcom County Planning and Development Services, the fraudsters are using artificial intelligence to pull actual permit data and impersonate county staff, making the fake invoices harder to detect than typical phishing attempts.
The warning comes jointly from Whatcom County Government and the City of Ferndale, WA, both of which have received reports of residents being targeted. The scam appears to focus on people who have applied for or received permits through the county's planning system, suggesting the criminals are harvesting data from publicly accessible permit records to tailor their fraudulent communications.
County officials say they are taking cybersecurity steps to address the problem on their end, though they have not publicly described what those steps involve. In the meantime, residents with active permit applications are urged to exercise caution with any email requesting payment. The county's guidance is clear: do not follow hyperlinks in suspicious emails. Instead, log directly into the Whatcom County Customer Service Portal to check permit status and pay fees.
Knowing which email addresses are legitimate can help residents spot fakes. Emails from Whatcom County Planning and Development Services staff will come from addresses formatted as staffname@co.whatcom.wa.us. Automated communications from the county's permitting system will come from noreply@eplmail.tylerapp.com. Any other address requesting permit payments should be treated with suspicion.
Equally important: Whatcom County PDS will never request payment of permit fees via wire transfer. That method of payment is not part of the county's normal process, and any request to wire funds should be treated as a red flag regardless of how official the invoice appears.
This type of AI-assisted fraud represents a newer and more dangerous evolution of permit scams, which have historically targeted homeowners in building-active communities. By pulling real permit numbers, contractor names, and property addresses from public databases, scammers can craft messages that look indistinguishable from genuine county correspondence. The use of AI to assemble these details at scale means more residents may receive targeted messages than in previous years.
Property owners who receive a suspicious invoice are encouraged to contact Whatcom County directly through official channels before taking any action. The county's main Planning and Development Services line can be reached through whatcomcounty.us. The City of Ferndale has issued its own parallel warning for residents with permits in that jurisdiction, noting the same pattern of AI-powered impersonation.
For residents who believe they may have already responded to a fraudulent invoice or made a payment, contacting local law enforcement and the Washington State Attorney General's consumer protection office is recommended. The Attorney General's office maintains a fraud reporting portal at atg.wa.gov. Reports help officials track the scope of the scam and may aid in investigation.
This scam alert follows a broader trend of AI-powered fraud targeting government permit and licensing systems nationwide. If you have received a suspicious invoice and want to verify whether it is legitimate, bypass any links in the email entirely and go directly to the official Whatcom County website at whatcomcounty.us to confirm your account status. Staying skeptical of unexpected invoices, even convincing-looking ones, remains the most reliable protection against this kind of fraud.
