The office of Maine's Secretary of State is alerting residents about a widespread text messaging scam circulating in the state.
The texts claim that the recipient's driver's license or vehicle registration could be suspended because of an unresolved traffic violation. Recipients are then told they have to pay a fine within days to avoid enforcement or other repercussions. The messages claim to be from the nonexistent Maine Department of Motor Vehicles.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, whose office includes the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, described the scam as a typical phishing effort to fool people into handing over credit card or sensitive personal information. Bellows said the BMV doesn't use text messages to notify drivers about license or registration issues. And she said state agencies don't ask for money or credit card information over texts.
"We just have to protect ourselves because these guys are hard to track down and hard to stop," Bellows told reporters on Monday. "They are using different websites for different text messages. So the number one thing you can do is take a deep breath, pause, don't click on a suspicious link unless you were expecting it."
Bellows said anyone who clicks on a phishing link or provides sensitive information should contact their financial institution. People who lose money to a scam can also report the loss to local law enforcement or to Maine's attorney general's office.
Bellows said people who received the text do not need to notify the BMV but recipients can report the text number as "junk" to cellular companies.
