Little Village’s Best of the CRANDIC 2021 issue hasn’t even been out for a week yet, but it’s already attracted its second scammer targeting some of the winners. Or, at least, trying to target. The second scammer doesn’t seem to have the minimal competency of the first.
The first was a New Jersey trophy shop, Regent Plaque & Signs, that contacted some previous CRANDIC winners claiming it was working with Little Village to offer commemorative CRANDIC plaques. This, of course, is not true.
The somewhat pricey plaques even feature the competition’s logo, albeit one that’s now out of date. LV’s attorney has sent them a cease-and-desist letter.
The new scam seems to be a phishing attempt.
LV was contacted Tuesday morning by the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) which had received a suspicious phone call. LSA does a lot of things – it provides administrative services to the Iowa Legislature, gives state lawmakers expert analysis of the financial impact of bills (which often gets ignored) and is even the agency in charge of the nonpartisan redistricting process that created the new legislative and congressional maps. One thing LSA does not do is organize softball teams in the Iowa City area. But the Lambda Softball Association (LSA) of Eastern Iowa does.
LSA of Eastern Iowa won Best Community Sports League in this year’s CRANDIC awards. It looks like the scammers were just googling for a phone number for LSA and got the one in the Iowa State Capitol Building, not the three-year-old Iowa City sports league.
The person who answered the phone at LSA (Des Moines) was understandably confused when the caller told her that Little Village had just published a story on them. Confusion gave way to suspicion when the caller told her they wanted to email her a link to click to read the story — a classic phishing ploy.
So, just to be clear, LV isn’t calling CRANDIC winners, or any state government agencies, and offering to send them links to stories.
Hopefully this is the last scam alert for the year.
