[QUOTE=Runestar]
Don’t know about Portland, but here in Carmel Indiana, if your house has an alarm system, you have to have a permit filed with the city before it can be activated.
However, the permit is a one-time only fee here, and there’s no annual renewal required.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, thank you, Runestar. I admit that I was first imagining that this was a completely mad thing invented by the scammer, perhaps in the hope of finding some very old/confused person who would pay up to anything if it looked even semi-official, but now I can see that it makes just enough sense for it to sound legit.
I have no idea how it works here but I can see that it would make a bit of sense for the local police et cetera to know who was planning to run a very loud alarm system in their houses, and of course it it were to be an alarm system linked to the local police station, then police and fire and ambulance would want to know.
Now if alarms are fair game, how long before we need to pay for a permit for excursions too? Yay, scammers, you go and try to scam Bill Shakepeare, 'cos you will love it, as he liked to spell his name in quite as many ways as your classic scammer does. Oooh, the fun.
(I might even buy a “permit of excursion” - would it be needed to let me go on a 'bus from the city to spend a day at the seaside?) 
(Or perhaps I mean not “'bus” but “charabanc”.)
And good luck, Dan Blather with your new pen friend in Nigeria. 
