Scammers in New York City posing as city officials are sending out text messages to people informing that they have unpaid parking tickets. The text message also provides a link to an official looking website where the targeted victims are lured into providing personal information including credit card or debit card information to pay the phony parking ticket. Here are copies of some of the text messages being sent.
Through the use of AI, the phony city websites appear quite official and legitimate. New York City officials have already shut down eleven of these websites including nycitypay.com, but as soon as one phony website is shut down, scammers merely create another one.
While presently, this scam has been noted in NY City, you can be sure that the scam will spread to other cities.
TIPS
As I often advise you, whenever you get an email, text message or phone call, you can never be sure who is actually contacting you regardless of how legitimate the communication may appear so you should never click on a link, download an attachment, make a payment or provider personal information in response to such communications until you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
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