New traffic ticket scam circulating via email
Posted November 24, 2016 4:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Relax! — Police aren’t sending you traffic tickets through email. It’s the latest phishing scam meant to separate you from your money.
The email is meant to look official, but it doesn’t quite meet the mark. It has a case number, date the alleged offence occurred and an amount due. It doesn’t say where the offence happened or which police department is issuing the fine. It accuses you of “negligent driving” and tells you to click a link to pay the ticket. That’s when you’re asked for credit card information.
Whatever you do, don’t click the link and pay says Evan Kelly with the Better Business Bureau. He says the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre alerted him about this scam earlier this week. “It’s one of those things where they’re trying to make this email look relatively official. Whatever jurisdiction you’re living in, it’s claiming you’re owing a driving ticket. Obviously, anybody who receives one of these would know whether or not they’ve been stopped by the police. That’s the one way you’re going to get a ticket.”
He isn’t sure where the scam originated, but he bets it’s somewhere overseas.
