Fake invoices posing as the Mat-Su Borough are targeting people who apply for permits

Someone is sending fake invoices made to look like they come from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to people who apply for land use permits, the borough's planning director told the Planning Commission on Monday.

"It has been happening regularly with all of anybody who applies for a conditional use permit or a variance. Somebody is creating these false invoices," said Planning and Land Use Director Alex Strawn.

The borough has contacted the authorities and its IT staff, Strawn said, and plans to change its permit application and warn every applicant in person. "The most important people that need to know are the applicants because they're the ones who are potentially being victimized by this," he said.

The warning came after a business owner described getting the invoices. Terry Zell, a co-owner of the marijuana store Bad Gramm3r on North Helen Lane, told commissioners the shop received 10 invoices in nine days that looked like they came from the borough. The most recent carried Strawn's name, and another carried the name of Development Services Manager Wade Long, Zell said.

The invoices asked for money to be wired, and together came to more than $45,000, Zell said. Zell almost paid the first one before noticing that the borough doesn't ask for wire transfers. "Who's this woman in Texas that I'm supposed to be sending money to?" Zell said. The email addresses ended in ".usa," and the shop's staff spotted the scam right away, Zell said.

Zell asked the borough to warn people with permit applications on its agenda.

Bad Gramm3r was before the commission to change its hours. Commissioners approved, without objection, an amendment to the store's 2017 conditional use permit letting it open at 9 am instead of 10 am. It will still close at 8 pm.

Borough staff learned during a state Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office review earlier this year that the shop had begun opening at 9 am, beyond what its permit allowed, Long said. The shop went back to 10 am when the borough told it to and applied for the change.

A co-owner told commissioners the shop started opening earlier to keep up with competition and forgot about the permit's hours. Zell said the shop closes at 8 pm because it sits among homes. "We have a subdivision all around us, and we thought it was really unfair to have traffic and perhaps stone people" driving around when children might be out, Zell said.

Staff mailed 45 notices to nearby property owners and received no comments.