The Berrien Community Foundation is warning businesses to beware scammers who are posing as foundation employees.
Within the last week, a scammer contacted someone claiming they were from the Berrien Community Foundation and inquiring about purchasing a computer. BCF President Lisa Cripps-Downey said, thankfully, no purchases went through. However, she wants to warn people about this.
“We’ve never had anything like this,” Cripps-Downey said. “We just know that in the internet age, there are a lot of bad actors out there trying to trying to scam people using electronic means. So everybody just has to be so careful and check when you get those emails or you get those links, just be very, very careful and double check and make sure.”
The scammer also sent out emails using employee names and claiming they work with the foundation.
Several fraudulent large purchases were thwarted when business owners followed up with BCF directly. Downey says there was no breach or anything of the sort.
The BCF is working with the Berrien County Sheriffs office to protect local businesses and locate the scammers.
