Maryland fire department falls victim to $200,000 ambulance scam
Scammers stole $200K ambulance down payment from Rockville fire department
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were allegedly stolen from the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department. Officials say they were targeted by cybercriminals while attempting to purchase two ambulances. FOX 5's Josh Rosenthal reports from Rockville.
ROCKVILLE, Md. - The Rockville Volunteer Fire Department says scammers stole over $200,000 from them in April.
The money was supposed to go towards two brand-new ambulances, but the department says online thieves impersonated a vendor and collected the funds.
"To have somebody steal, from us, is just remarkable," said Eric Bernard, president of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department. "We literally had the breath sucked out of us. What should have been our happiest day in years, buying two new ambulances, turned into a nightmare."
Once the department found out, they reported it to the FBI, the United States Secret Service, and the Montgomery County Police Department.
They also contacted their bank, which was able to recover nearly half of what was stolen.
"These scammers spoofed our internal emails and started typing in those emails like they were one of the participants, and when they sent the routing numbers, they were bogus routing numbers," Bernard explained.
Photo via Rockville Volunteer Fire Department
In a statement, the department said, "Thanks to decades of generosity from the community RVFD serves, we remain in a strong financial position to both complete this purchase and to continue operations as normal.
For years, the department has been at the forefront of both fighting such scams and shutting them down in our county, as we did in 2019 with a scam PAC that preyed on firefighters, veterans, and breast cancer patients."
RVFD, which is the largest volunteer fire department in Maryland, is working with its bank and several law enforcement agencies to recover the rest of the stolen money.
They're also planning to implement more safeguards to protect themselves from cybercrimes.
A fund has been created to help RVFD recoup the money to purchase the ambulances. Donate to the Ambulance Recovery Fund here.
FOX 5's Josh Rosenthal contributed to this report.