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Attorney General McGraw warns businesses of fraudlent letters appearing to come from his office
Attorney General Darrell McGraw issued a warning recently about letters sent to
West Virginia businesses falsely claiming the Attorney General’s Office was
investigating their business practices.
These letters appear on forged letterhead bearing a state seal and the address of either McGraw’s Consumer Protection Division or Workers Compensation Division. One of the letters claimed to be from McGraw himself.
The forgeries are of poor quality and contain numerous misspellings and typos.
The letters have been mailed from different parts of the state and have also appeared
on bulletin boards in local post offices.
The forgeries falsely claiming to be from the Consumer Protection Division were
not signed by an employee of the Attorney General’s Office. McGraw said in a prepared release, “No business investigated by the Attorney General’s Office would receive correspondence without the signature of an employee.”
McGraw warned, “These fake letters are causing serious harm to the small
business community. Some businesses have even gone to the expense of hiring an
attorney. We believe there may be follow-up letters or e-mails seeking settlement from
the affected business, since most scams are designed to extort money from innocent
victims. We have been in contact with federal prosecutors to determine if federal laws
have been violated.”
If you are a business and believe that you have received a forged letter from the
Attorney General’s Office, please contact Attorney General Darrell McGraw’s Toll-Free
hotline, at 1-800-368-8808 or e-mail consumer@wvago.gov.
