Scam Alert: Buncombe County Planning & Development Urges Caution

Buncombe County Planning & Development has received several reports of recent scam attempts and is urging developers and residents to use caution. Nationwide, planning departments are seeing a rise in scammers and bad actors using public planning data to send counterfeit emails requesting money to process site plan reviews, application fees, and more.  

“These letters are sophisticated, they will often have my name included, reference current zoning cases, and there might just be one word misspelled, or it comes from an incorrect email address,” says Planning Director Nathan Pennington.  

How the scam works 

For any development project requiring a hearing before the Board of Adjustment or Planning Board, applicants will submit materials to staff including application forms, site plans, and other supplemental documents that will be reviewed by planning staff and/or the board. 

Once an application has undergone the first internal stages of review and been scheduled for a public hearing, the materials are posted online to the Development Projects Page so that the public and board members can view them prior to the hearing. 

“What we are seeing is the scammers will then scrape data from these published documents to obtain contact information for applicants, property owners, design professionals, and other individuals involved in the project that they can target. They will also scrape details about the project itself (such as the address, description of what is being developed, etc.) to include in their emails to appear legitimate,” says Pennington.  

The scammers will send emails to the targets informing them that approval of their project cannot proceed until an "application review and approval fee" - typically ranging from about $4,000 to $10,000 - is settled. In the email, the scammers will claim that the fee covers a multitude of costs associated with the development review process, such as application intake, site visits and inspections, and technological costs. They will ask the recipients to reply requesting wire transfer instructions and urge them to conduct all communications via email (to dissuade them from contacting Planning & Development directly and thereby being alerted to the scam). The emails and attached invoices make use of official Buncombe County logos and branding, names of real employees, and addresses of real Buncombe County offices. The senders' email addresses are designed to mimic official staff and department email addresses, for example "[email protected]" instead of the Planning department's actual email address, [email protected]. They are typically sent on weekdays during or close to normal business hours. 

What you Need to Know 

• All fees assessed for Board of Adjustment or Planning Board cases are invoiced upon intake of the application.
• Applicants can check the County fee schedule to confirm the correct fees that will apply to their project.
• Buncombe County Government will never ask for payment via wire transfer, gift cards, cryptocurrency, etc. If you receive an email like this, please delete  it, and block the sender. All fee emails for Board of Adjustment cases will come from [email protected] or directly from a staff member with an email address ending in @buncombenc.gov. If you receive an email from any other email address asking for payment, it is most assuredly a scam. 
• If you have any questions regarding any email(s) you receive surrounding a Board of Adjustment case, please do not hesitate to reach out directly to the Planning Department at 828-250-4830.
• Report scams to [email protected]
• Report scams, file complaints, get tips on protecting yourself from the NC Department of Justice at https://ncdoj.gov/protecting-consumers/
• Submit a Crime Tip - Buncombe County Sheriff

Related: https://www.planning.org/planning/2026/jan/fraud-alert-how-scammers-are-now-impersonating-city-governments/