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Text scammers pretending to be Schuylkill County fire company

A fire company in Schuylkill County is alerting people of a text message scam. The scammer claims they're raising money for the Shenandoah Heights Fire Company.

SHENANDOAH, Pa. — A text scam is making the rounds in Schuylkill County. Someone is pretending to represent the Shenandoah Heights Fire Company.

Even Fire Chief Steven Quinn received the suspicious text.

"I was confused, and at first I thought they were doing something different, and then I realized we still do everything on paper up there. We're not that advanced yet; nothing is through text message," Chief Quinn said.

The Shenandoah Heights Fire Company just finished collecting orders for its t-shirt and hoodie fundraiser, making this scam even more believable.

"There was a lot of questioning if we bought a shirt and we didn't get the discount because a lot of people thought the messages were real. So there was confusion from the text messages," he said.

Chief Quinn says the biggest red flag in the text was the web link.

"The big thing was the link. Most of these fire companies don't have the pages to send a link to do that. We're not up to date yet. If we're doing a fundraiser, you're getting a paper, and you're going to ask people if they're going to buy a shirt, and then you jot their name down," Chief Quinn said.

His biggest concern is the elderly falling for this scam.

"If they're not seeing us telling them it's a scam, they're hitting on it, and something's happening, they're going to think it's the fire company scamming them. And that's going to lose people, and we do a truck drive every year. Are people going to start to think that's a scam as well? We're going to have to change up how we're going to send it out," said Chief Quinn.

The fire company is doing what it can to spread the word about the scam. Still, Chief Quinn says it's made him rethink how they advertise future events.

"If we're going to have to put something like a watermark on it knowing it's coming from the firehouse. It's definitely going to change the game a little bit, and we don't know if it's going to hurt us yet, but we hope not," he said.

This scam isn't unique to Schuylkill County. Chief Quinn says it's been reported with fire companies across the state.

He says to be cautious of text messages requesting money, especially those claiming to be with a fire company.

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