Identity thieves and scammers are quite adept at spoofing legitimate websites and using domain names that are quite similar to the legitimate websites that we all seek.  Believing that they are at a legitimate website, many people become victims of identity theft by inputting personal information when they think it is secure to do so, when, in fact, they are directly providing their personal information to an  identity thief who uses the information to make the person a victim of their scam.  Compounding the problem is that often these phony websites turn up high on search engines such as Google.  Google and other search engines cannot be trusted to provide access to only legitimate websites.  Recently this problem has been occurring more and more in Massachusetts in regard to the website for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles which is updating its website due to a number of phony websites that have been taking personal information including credit card information from unsuspecting Massachusetts drivers seeking to renew their licenses online.

TIPS

Specifically for Massachusetts drivers, the official website for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is http://www.massrmv.com.  However, for everyone, the lesson is that you should always make sure that you never input information into a website unless you are absolutely sure that the website is legitimate.  Remember it is very easy for an identity thief to make a very legitimate looking counterfeit website as a trap for your personal information.  Also, remember that you cannot always trust search engines to provide you with the domain names for legitimate entities.  Search engines can be fooled just like the rest of us.