The U.S. EPA has been alerted that people affected by the Northern California fires may be receiving fraudulent calls from individuals posing as U.S. EPA staff and asking for financial information or offering grant awards. EPA is NOT asking for personal financial information like Social Security numbers or bank account numbers and is only contacting people regarding household hazardous waste collection.
Anyone asking for that information is committing fraud and impersonating a federal agent. If contacted by anyone asking for this kind of information, decline and then call the EPA Inspector General’s hotline at (888) 546-8740, and call the California Attorney General’s office at (800) 952-5225 and file a complaint at: http://oag.ca.gov/complaint