A D.C. business owner is warning others after he says he was scammed by someone pretending to be a fire protection inspector on Saturday morning.
The owner of Pearl’s Bagels in Northwest D.C. said he doesn’t want other small businesses to lose money like he did to the elaborate scammer, who arrived at their location during one of the busiest time of the week.
The impersonator, who was caught on video, walked in wearing a hat and carrying a notepad. He said he was going to check on the fire suppression system in the back, and after he did, he came back with four different invoices totaling $970.
The problem is, the company he claimed to work for doesn’t exist, and his name was fake.
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Owner Oliver Cox was not working at the time, but did speak to the scammer on the phone. He didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary, because he had actually put in a call recently to make sure his fire suppression system was up to date.
The man told the manager who was working at the time that Cox was OK with the payments being made in cash.
Cox said that wasn’t true, but the manager, who was incredibly busy with customers, bought the lie and paid the scammer.
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Cox said he realized something didn’t add up once he saw the invoices.
When he looked up the address and company name, Cox saw several news articles pop up about other people who had been scammed in similar ways.
“It hurts to give that much money away and hand it to a con artist,” he said. “We’re not going to have to close up shop because of it but it definitely–it seems like this guy has done it a lot. And I just really hope people are more cautious than we were.”
Cox said rather than dwell on what happened, he’s being proactive. He’s filed a police report and hopes that by sharing his story, the person responsible can be caught.
D.C. police distributed images of the man caught on video and said they’re seeking him on suspicion of first-degree fraud.
Anyone with potentially relevant information is asked to contact police. A reward of up to $1,000 is available.
