Longview Warns of Fraudulent Food Inspectors

LONGVIEW — The City of Longview Environmental Health Division is encouraging restaurants to ignore fraudulent phone calls from individuals claiming to be restaurant inspectors. Several local retail food establishments claim that they received telephone calls from individuals representing themselves as state inspectors. The caller attempts to schedule food inspections and asks the restaurant to provide the caller with a “code” received from an automated telephone system. The fraudulent caller then provides food establishment operators with a telephone number to call the Texas Department of State Health Services. Restaurants are encouraged to disregard these fraudulent phone calls.

The City of Longview Environmental Health Division is responsible for conducting all inspections for retail food establishments in the City of Longview. The Environmental Health Division does not schedule routine retail food inspections by appointment. In Longview, retail food establishment inspections are conducted randomly without prior notification provided to the food establishment. As a reminder to residents, you can go to http://www.LongviewTexas.gov to view the most recent restaurant inspection scores. For additional information about restaurant inspections, you can call the Environmental Health Division at 903-237-1285.