When a couple of Nevada City residents decided to replace the wood siding on their home with fire-resistive cement shingles, a scam came to light. Fraudsters are trying to con applicants out of large amounts of money by harvesting public data.
Both the homeowners and the contractor who filed the application on behalf of the couple received an official-looking email sent by “City Of Nevada City Planning & Zonning [sic] Commission” which listed details of the application.
Your application outlines a renovation project intended to:
- Repair pest-damaged wood siding and trims;
- Upgrade the home’s exterior with fire-rated, code-compliant materials;
- Satisfy requirements set by yourinsurance provider;
- Meet Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) standards;
- Support the goals of your Firewise neighborhood designation by increasing your property’s safety and defensibility during wildfire events.
Your project demonstrates a responsible and proactive approach toward improving both the safety and longevity of the home while aligning with local planning and public safety goals.
The email also stated:
To proceed with the formal review and approval process, you are required to settle the attached invoice, which represents theApplication Approval Fee. This fee was formally recommended by Planning Staff and ismandatory for your application to advance through the review and hearing process.
The invoice contained an itemized list of the fees:
Application Processing Fee $2,000.00
Zoning Compliance Review $400.00
Public Hearing Administrative Fee $300.00
Legal & Regulatory Assessment $400.00
Expert Review & Site Evaluation $1,000.00
Contract Staff & Consultation Fees $600.00
Public Notice & Documentation Costs $353.00
Record-Keeping & Compliance Audits $900.00
Total: $5,953.00
AI makes harvesting data easy
While the invoice looks somewhat amateurish, the scheme preys on applicants whose projects require approval by the planning commission.
Public documents, such as agendas and supporting documents contain massive amounts of harvestable data. In the case of a planning commission agenda dealing with permit applications, addresses and contact info of homeowners and contractors, detailed plans, prior permits and photos.
Scraping the data via artificial intelligence (AI) is easy and this is a prime example of misusing the required public posting.
Both the email and the invoice have the hallmarks of AI-generated content, including the inevitable bullet points and some hallucinations.
No public warning from the city until media starts asking questions
The email contained some obvious errors that roused the suspicion of homeowners Lorraine Gervais and Charlie Faber. Gervais reached out to the city’s planning department for clarification. According to Gervais, they stated two other applicants also received invoices for the same amount.
Needless to say, the invoices are bogus.
Early this morning, we reached out to City Manager Sean Grayson for comment who thanked us for the information and referred the matter to staff. Assistant City Manager Lon Peterson replied with a press release at 11:19 am, less than an hour before publication time. He stated, “The City took proactive steps to address this issue, before you notified us, by emailing current applicants (addressing the audience at risk) to inform them about the potential issue and advising them not to open suspicious emails and to disregard phishing emails. Additionally, the City will no longer include email addresses and phone numbers from applications in the Planning Commission agenda packets. Furthermore, as you notified us, we posted more information for the community. We can always do better, and I appreciate the heads up.”
Have you been impacted?
“Residents who have received any invoice from the City related to planning applications should immediately contact the Nevada City Police Department at 530-265-4700.” the city’s press release reads.
You are also welcome to reach out to us for a follow-up story.