Local Business Being Targeted by Fake Fire Inspections

After receiving numerous reports of local businesses being victimized by fraudulent fire inspectors, a warning has been issued to business owners: Be careful of crooks in firemen's clothing.

The said that on April 26, they received three reports from businesses in Rancho San Diego that claim they were visited by people performing fake fire inspections. Fire Marshall Marsha Larsen told Mount Helix Patch that this kind of fraud has been happening all over the state in the past year or so, and now the masterminds are even turning their attention to larger retail stores.

"In the past, we've heard of reports of this happening at smaller, minority-owned businesses," she said. "But now they are becoming much more brazen, and targeting larger chain stores."

Larsen said that three Rancho San Diego businesses – Party City, Staples and Babylon Jewelry – were recently targets of these fake inspections. She said that people will enter a business, either posing as representatives from the fire department or saying that they were "hired" by the department to perform the inspections. She said that often they will leave an invoice after the inspection for hundreds of dollars in phony fines and fees.

The store manager at Party City, who asked not to be identified, said that one of the fake fire inspectors came into his store about a month ago. He said the man had on a service shirt with patches and lettering that indicated he was from a fire department.

"He was a big guy with a goatee. He was very nice, soft-spoken," said the manager. "He told me he was 'sent by corporate' so I let him go through with the inspection."

[The manager] said that the man was walking through the store, taking notes, but not really asking any questions. After the inspection was done, he said that the store had problems with the fire extinguishers and with the height of the aisle partitions from the ceiling.

"He showed me an invoice, and none of the notes on the invoice alarmed me," [the manager] said. "He asked me to sign the invoice and I said I can't without him giving me a copy, which he would not do. That raised some suspicions in my mind. He said,  'They'll call you' and pointed to the letters on his shirt. Then he left in a Honda Civic, which made me think this was a total fraud."

[The manager], who has been manager at the store for almost a year, and has been involved with lots of inspections by different agencies, said the biggest difference was that the man didn't ask questions, and was not specific with anything in his walkthrough.

He has a simple solution for other businesses to weed out frauds.

"Just follow your company's procedures closely," he said. "If anything (that happens) is outside of that, then you should be concerned."

Larsen said that the district does not hire outside private parties when the district performs inspections, they are conducted by fire district personnel in uniforms who wear badges and carry department identification cards. She said that it's important for business owners to ask for identification.

"We don't get offended if you ask for identification," she said. "In fact, after what's been happening, we encourage it."

She added that when an official inspection is performed, they will check for all of the fire safety hazards, write a report, and send an invoice later, adding that the district does not take payment then and there. She said a typical inspection for a unit in retail plaza for instance is about $49.

She stressed that business owners should never pay for an inspection in cash on the same day.

Reports of this kind of fraud have been revealed all over the state. The city of Torrance, in the Los Angeles area, prosecuted two individuals and a fire protection company for posing as firefighters performing fire inspections of local businesses.

Larsen said that if businesses have a reason to doubt that their fire inspection was not legitimate, they should contact the district immediately at (619) 670-0500. Leonard Villareal, public information officer with the district, said that they encourage victims to report the incident to law enforcement, as a way to help limit the potential of other victims.

Editor's Note: References to the store manager's name have been removed at his request, after asking not to be indentified.