CINCINNATI —

A memo from Cincinnati City Manager Paula Boggs Meuthing contains details of fraudulent activity that no taxpayer wants to see.

"This is really an attack on the taxpayers of Cincinnati," cybersecurity expert Dave Hatter said.

Issued Wednesday, the memo said a $137,000 payment that was supposed to go to a Dept. of Transportation and Engineering contractor went to a scammer instead.

It happened when someone impersonating the contractor's office manager sent a message asking city workers to update the company's electronic fund transfer information. As a result, a $137,000 payment went to the con artist and not the contractor.

"This kind of thing is a huge problem," Hatter said.

WLWT investigator Todd Dykes shared the memo with Hatter, who works for a firm called Intrust IT.

Hatter also oversees public money as the mayor of Fort Wright in Kenton County.

While he doesn't know for sure what happened, Hatter has a hunch.

"What Cincinnati put out — there's not enough information there to say for sure this is what's happened, but. ... I can almost guarantee you they probably got an email from the vendor requesting a payment. The vendor's accounts had been broken into. There was an imposter impersonating the vendor," Hatter said.

That appears to be how the scam unfolded based on the city manager's memo, although the manager's office declined to talk about it.

The memo said the city does about 24,000 electronic fund transfers a year, making what happened in this case "extremely rare."

"With 24,000 a year, and also people don't realize this as a thing, I could see how Cincinnati would easily not catch this," Hatter said. "In my opinion, based on what I know so far ... they are just the unfortunate dupes that sent money to the wrong place because they wouldn't know otherwise, you know."

It's not clear if the legitimate contractor will be made whole and receive the $137,000. All the city manager's memo said is police are now involved and the city is trying to recover the money.

CHICAGO, Ill. — COVID-19 rocked small businesses. Mom-and-pop contractors were hit especially hard. Now, an app is helping them connect with customers in a new way.

Working with his hands has been a welcome change for Steve Banyamin.

“Four years ago, I was working for a fortune 15 company doing B2B sales,” he said. “I just hustled. I’d be putting 55, 60 hours of work a week and it’s stressful.”

These days, he runs his own contracting business.

“You see me now, sweating, I’m swinging hammers, it’s dusty, but it’s a different type of mental stress. I’m much happier now,” said Banyamin.

Most of his work comes from word of mouth, but that can leave some holes in his schedule. When he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid.

“There was a gap in between where I was kind of like, 'Oh man, what am I going to do? I’ve got no job lined up and the bills aren’t going away,'” said Banyamin.

The pandemic exacerbated that uncertainty.

Unemployment in the construction industry spiked during the pandemic, from 5.5% in February 2020, to more than 16% by April. It continued to hover around 10% through the beginning of this year.

But now he has some help via a new app called ChoreRelief. It connects contractors with potential clients.

“So, you set up an account and as soon as an opportunity comes in and fits your criteria, your skillset, as well as the service area you would like to perform service at, we notify you immediately. All you have to do is open the app,” said Tarik Khribech, the founder of Chore Relief. “And then just send them what is a fair bid, and if they accept your offer, congratulations."

It’s just one of the companies Khribech has started since he emigrated to the US from Morocco.

“Growing up as a kid, I was always the hustler. If I have something and you like it, I’m happy to sell it for a profit,” said Khribech. “I buy something, I flip it, I sell it. You call me in the middle of the night. You see me walking down the middle of the street with the brand-new sneakers my brother just sent me from America and you give me a price for it, I’ll go home barefoot.”

Now, he wants to give a boost to contractors like Banyamin who are hustling to earn a living.

“A lot of the people don’t have the budget or the marketing experience, but you know what they all have in common? They have smartphones. So that’s when the idea came, let’s build an ecosystem that empowers these small mom and pop shops, small businesses,” said Khribech.

That ecosystem is helping Banyamin and other contractors like him to build and sustain their business.

“Because of ChoreRelief and some of the other apps that I use, business is plentiful. So, it’s never the case where I don’t know how I’m going to make that money. It’s more about, 'Oh man, I hope I have enough people to help,'” said Banyamin.

Video above: How to replace a lost, damaged COVID-19 vaccination card

A Los Angeles County contract worker was charged with felony grand theft after more than 500 blank vaccine cards were stolen from a vaccination center at the Pomona Fairplex, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office announced Wednesday.

Officers responded to the vaccine site on April 27 and found an employee had stolen blank cards and put them in his car, according to a news release from the La Verne Police Department. Further investigation revealed the employee had more blank cards in his hotel room.

A total of 528 blank cards were recovered, the LVPD release said. Each card has a value of at least $15 if illegally sold, prosecutors said.

The suspect is a 45-year-old man who was a nonclinical contracted employee hired to support the vaccination site, LVPD said.

"Selling fraudulent and stolen vaccine cards is illegal, immoral and puts the public at risk of exposure to a deadly virus," District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.

In response to the incident, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said it is cooperating with the La Verne Police Department in their investigation.

"Public Health has extensive security measures in place which allowed for the quick identification of the theft and after this incident in April added additional protocols to prevent future thefts," the department said.

The man is expected to be arraigned on Aug. 25.