Shiner pharmacy falls prey to scammers

Beware of scammers! The Shiner Police Department recently received a report from the Shiner Chamber of Commerce regarding a fraudulent membership application from a fake business claiming to be a pharmaceutical company in Shiner. 
“We had an applicant for Chamber membership come through our email,” SCOC President Sarah Langhoff said. “It stated a pharmacy name that is not an existent pharmacy.
I looked at the website that the applicant had listed and it did not seem like a legitimate website. It was selling products that I know the pharmacy here (in Shiner) was not offering. All the red flags went off.”
The false pharmacy that submitted an application to the SCOC was acting under the name Shiner Family Pharmacy. 
That pharmacy name does not exist anymore. The current pharmacy in Shiner operates under the name Quality Pharmacy; although, years ago, it was called Shiner Family Pharmacy. 
“(This false pharmacy) wasn’t using the current pharmacy’s name (on their website),” Sarah Langhoff said. “What they were doing was using Quality Pharmacy’s address and picture. They were also listing another phone number that did have a ‘361’ area code, but it was not Quality Pharmacy’s phone number.” 
“Another item of concern with this (false) applicant was that it listed the name of a pharmacist who does live here in town, but she is no longer practicing in a pharmacy here in town. 
So, I felt like it was wrongfully impersonating a licensed pharmacist. We ended up calling the pharmacist they were impersonating and informed her of the situation.”
This pharmacist then called the licensing pharmacy board and informed them as well. 
Quality Pharmacy has had issues with people asking when will they ship their medication that they don’t ship according to Langhoff. This indicates that some people have already fallen prey to this scam. 
“Not only is this taking business away potentially from Quality Pharmacy, but it’s also leaving a population very vulnerable to scams,” Sarah Langhoff said.
SPD’s investigation into this showed that the information on the false website indicated that the business was in Canada. 
“The registered owner of the web domain also claimed an address in Pakistan and associated locations in New Zealand and Russia,” Police Chief Wayne Denson said. “SPD forwarded the information to the Federal Trade Commission as they have primary responsibility to these types of reports.”
The Attorney General’s Office in Texas also has a task force dedicated to crimes like this and the SCOC will be looking into filing a report with them. 
The scammers went as far as paying for the application to the SCOC. 
“As a Chamber of Commerce, our board can vote to deny a member if it’s a business that doesn’t align with our mission and this did not align with that,” Sarah Langhoff said.
The best way to avoid these types of scams is to practice online reputation management according to Sarah Langhoff’s husband and Top Hat Tech Founder Brian Langhoff. That means monitoring, influencing, and improving an individual’s or business’s reputation on the Internet. 
“It’s becoming more common these days for people to try and take trades or different businesses to represent something in an area as a way to scoop away business to their own operations,” Brian Langhoff said. 
This means it’s important to try and pay for domain’s related to one’s company so that other shady businesses don’t take it over. 
“In this specific case, these (fraudulant) people have also listed the business on Google Maps with the correct address, but a different phone number,” Brian Langhoff said. “So, it’s important for businesses to look at their online reputation management and think about where all the places’ people may try and find their business. This can include other search engines like Apple Maps.”
In order to know the validity of a business’s website, make sure that it looks and feels correct. 
“If the website is listing a different phone number, try and check it against something that you trust (like a receipt),” Brian Langhoff said. 
“In this case, the SCOC is a great source. Another thing to do is to make sure the business name actually matches what they operate as. 
Just because a website comes up as number one on Google listings doesn’t mean it’s the best one.”
This is the first time in Sarah Langhoff’s year’s as Chamber President that she has denied a business application. 
“My biggest focus right now is making sure that people know that if they have questions about a business in town that the SCOC is the most reputable place to find business information,” Sarah Langhoff said. 
“If there’s somebody who is looking for a phone number or a website of a business in Shiner, our SCOC website has an up-to-date business listing of all of our members. 
Folks can also always call us, and we can tell them who is a trusted business.”