Scammer tried to fool Sedgwick County commissioner, but he wasn’t buying it

A scammer impersonating Sedgwick County Commission Chair Pete Meitzner requested Jim Howell’s assistance purchasing Apple gift cards as “incentives” for staff.

“Hi there, Have you got a minute for a request?” a scammer emailed the District 5 commissioner in an exchange Howell posted to his Facebook Wednesday evening.

“Call me,” Howell responded before the scammer followed up with detailed instructions for purchasing $1,200 in Apple gift cards, allegedly for six county employees.

“Well, I’m not that stupid,” Howell emailed back before reporting the Meitzner impersonator to the district attorney and sheriff.

“When I received the first email, I did not pick up on the scammer,” Howell said in his post. “On round two, I could easily see this was a scammer pretending to be the BOCC chair. I opened the address and examined it and could see someone set this gmail up to intimidate.”

The emails from officemail0813467@gmail.com were flagged in Howell’s inbox for originating from “outside of the organization.” They asked Howell to purchase the gift cards and email back pictures, promising to reimburse him.

“I have been working on incentives and I aimed at surprising some of our diligent staff with gift cards this week,” the scammer stated, going on to specify that the cards were for Howell, Commissioners Sarah Lopez and David Dennis, County Appraiser Mark Clark, Comcare Director Joan Tammany and DA Marc Bennett, misspelled as “March Bennet.”

The actual chair of the County Commission said the episode serves as “a reminder to us all that scamming, phishing, and other bad things are a part of social media in today’s world.”

“Please be careful. Bad guys are bad guys and they are not welcome in our community,” Meitzner said.