Mesa County officials have found themselves on the losing end of a slick cyber scam that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars — a cautionary tale in the age of ever-sneakier email fraud.

How It All Unfolded

It looked like business as usual at first. The Clerk and Recorder’s Office had a contract with U.S. Imaging, a company tasked with prepping and scanning vital documents. The job came in three phases.

Phase one? No problem. Payment went through, no red flags.

But when the invoice for phase two arrived, things took a turn. Stephanie Rubinstein, First Assistant County Attorney, broke it down:
“Phase two, after the completion, we received an invoice as expected. A second email was sent that changed the wiring instructions, and it was a spoof email.”

In other words, the email looked legit. No sloppy typos, no shady sender address — the usual red flags just weren’t there. And so the wire transfer, totaling just over $272,000, was made to a scammer’s account.

The Money Trail Goes Cold

Once the funds were gone, it didn’t take long for the grim realization to sink in. The real U.S. Imaging never got the payment. Mesa County did.

“They fell for a very convincing scheme,” said a local cybersecurity expert who consults for other Western Slope governments. “These fraudsters are pros — they study email formats, they copy signatures. If you’re in a rush, you’ll get burned.”

By the time the error was caught, the money had vanished into accounts likely scattered across multiple states or even overseas.

Insurance Softens the Blow — Somewhat

Thankfully for the county, not all was lost. Insurance will cover about half the amount, according to Rubinstein.

U.S. Imaging also stepped up, offering Mesa County a reduced price to finish the rest of the contract — a small silver lining, but the financial sting remains.

Here’s a quick snapshot:

How Scams Like This Keep Happening

Email wire frauds are nothing new, but they’re growing more sophisticated each year. In 2024 alone, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported over $2.7 billion in losses tied to business email compromise.

The red flags — funky grammar, strange domain names — weren’t present in this scam. That’s what makes it so maddening.

Rubinstein put it plainly: “A lot of these emails, you’ll see there are grammatical errors or misspellings, or it has a funky email. None of that existed in this case.”

One email slip-up, and just like that, taxpayer money’s gone.

Local Governments: Easy Targets?

So why do local governments get hit so often? For starters, there’s a ton of vendor payments, multiple departments, and high staff turnover.

Plus, governments have insurance. Some scammers see that as a green light.

“It’s like dangling cheese in front of a mouse,” said a retired county treasurer. “They know a lot of municipalities will just file a claim and move on.”

Simple Tips, Big Difference

Rubinstein hopes the county’s loss serves as a wake-up call — not just for bureaucrats, but for anyone with a bank account.

“If an email or text message claiming to be a company seems off, verify it’s who they say they are,” she said. “Find the right number for that company and call them directly.”

Her no-nonsense checklist:

• Always verify changes in wiring instructions by phone.

• Never trust banking updates that come via email alone.

• Look for subtle differences in email domains — even one letter off can be a scam.

One call could have saved Mesa County a six-figure headache.

A Community Learns the Hard Way

In Grand Junction coffee shops, people are shaking their heads. One local business owner, who’s fought off his own invoice scam, said: “You feel for them — but man, double-check before wiring that kind of money.”

Some taxpayers are grumbling that more robust controls should have caught it.

Rubinstein says the county is reviewing its payment protocols now. It might not bring the lost dollars back, but it might prevent the next big hit.

The Hunt for the Scammers

Local law enforcement is working with federal partners to track the payment trail. But in many of these cases, the odds of full recovery are slim. The money gets chopped up, washed through multiple accounts, then withdrawn in cash.

A few arrests have been made in similar scams, but not often.

So, for now, Mesa County takes the lesson to heart — sometimes the best firewall is simply picking up the phone.