Danbury Township Trustees are issuing a warning to residents about a scam that is specifically targeting Board of Zoning Appeals & Zoning Commission applications. This is happening all across the United States. The scammer poses as the local jurisdiction and sends an email to applicants indicating there is an outstanding invoice for the application and to wire funds via the email they are sending from. The invoice amounts are thousands of dollars, which Danbury Township would never charge. It looks very legit because they lift the local jurisdiction logo and insert a staff members name and title. Due to recent changes in Ohio state law requirements regarding public notification, we believe the scammers get applicant emails from the hearing packets required to be posted on the Township website.  Moving forward, Danbury Township will be redacting email addresses and phone numbers of applicants from the online public notification to better protect our residents. Any time a fee is required by the Township for one of these applications, staff will have detailed conversations with the applicant about what the fee is, and it is usually fully paid for on the front-end when the application is filed. If an email is not coming from a “@danburytownship.com” domain, it should be considered fraudulent and deleted. As always, to protect yourself, if you ever question an email as being legitimate, please call the Township offices to ask before ever replying, opening a link or attachment, or sending money.
Posted 10.09.25 @ 8:10a.m.