MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — The Mount Airy Police Department is warning of a Nextdoor scam, but Nextdoor says not so fast.
In a recent post of Facebook the department wrote, "If you receive a letter from a generic local address, be aware it's a scam attempt to obtain information from you The few letters we have encountered will contain a name inside the letter. . . recommending you join nextdoor.com."
To verify if this claim is true we went to Nextdoor directly.
Spokeswoman Shannon Toliver says the letters are not a scam and the post is wrong.
She says invitation letters are a major part of how people join the app.
When you sign up, you have to use your real name and address which will be verified by the app. After that, the app will ask you if you want to invite your neighbors to join.
The company says invitation letters can only be sent from verified Nextdoor neighbors.
The invitation will include your name, street name and information about your neighborhood, just like written in the post from Mount Airy Police. But Nextdoor says the code is used to track who invited you, not as a way to scam you out of personal information.
The return address isn't local because the letters are sent from distribution centers elsewhere.
Nextdoor also says "www.nextdoor.com/join" is an official company URL.
So while Mount Airy Police might've had good intentions, we can verify the claim in the post is false.