Health Inspector Scam
The Tulare County District Attorney’s Office has become aware of a fraud scheme targeting restaurants, food service facilities and other small businesses in Tulare County, California and across North America.
A number of restaurants in Tulare County have recently received telephone calls from a person claiming to be a “health inspector” introducing a new procedure for arranging a health inspection. The phony “health inspector” asks the business owner to follow a procedure to get a special “code” to confirm the upcoming inspection. Later the business owner receives a second call asking for the “confirmation code.” Of course, there is no such inspection and no real inspector ever arrives.
In the alternative the caller claims to be from the State Health Department and informs the restaurant they have complaints against the restaurant and need to schedule an inspection. They will then attempt to ask a number of questions to obtain personal or business information from the person on the phone. They may even request a cell number to text a “code” to and ask you to confirm receipt; this is all part of an effort to obtain private information for fraudulent use.
This phony inspector scheme is part of a larger fraud involving setting up “verified” accounts with a national on-line auction service. The purpose of the “code” request is to get the small business owner to provide false verification to the online auction service. The con-artist does this to establish a bogus on-line account to be used in other fraud schemes.
Restaurants and food facility owners/operators need to be aware of this scam and should protect themselves from this fraudulent action by understanding:
The Environmental Health Division does not announce inspections in advance, will not call in advance of an inspection requesting information and will not call to schedule an inspection. The Environmental Health Division has not developed a new inspection procedure. Any caller identifying him/herself as a “health inspector” asking you to participate in a “code” process, requesting account information or soliciting other information is part of a fraud scheme. If you do not recognize your inspector, please ask for proper photo identification. Never give out personal or business identification information over the phone unless you are certain of the identity of the person with whom you are speaking. If you want to confirm that you’re speaking with a person from the Environmental Health Division, ask for the caller’s name, inform the caller you will call them back, hang-up and call the number below and ask for the person that called. If they hesitate or argue about the call back or ask you to call a different number simply hang-up as this is not someone from the Environmental Health Division.
If you have any questions or concerns, please call the Tulare County Environmental Health Division at (559) 624-7400 or the District Attorney’s Consumer Protection Hotline at 559-636-5410 or email at TCDAConsumerProtect@co.tulare.ca.us.