Detroit parking ticket text scam has many on alert when checking their phones
DETROIT (FOX 2):Now is a good time to monitor your SMS messages because a new parking ticket scam is circulating. It appears and feels as though it is from the City of Detroit.
They even chose someone at FOX 2 during scam season. Ironically, the person who answers calls for the Problem Solvers hotline is our coworker. As it happens, she was absolutely not alone.
“I was initially alarmed. How could I have this past-due parking ticket, I wondered? remarked Fox 2 Problem Solvers’ Katy Baetz-Matthews.
Baetz-Matthews received what seemed to be a text message from the City of Detroit this week informing her that she had a parking ticket that was past due and that she needed to click to pay in order to avoid a $35 late fee.
“Thefirst thing I saw was that the area code for the number that came from was 438, I believe, and that’s Montreal,” stated Baetz-Matthews.
After receiving hundreds of these fraud reports from viewers over the past ten years for the FOX 2 Problem Solvers, she had not parked in Detroit in a long time, and the amounts the con artists asked for also sounded strange.
“They’re after your credit card information, but they might get you for that $4.35,” Jessica Dupnack of FOX 2 stated.
When Baetz-Matthews said, “Well right, absolutely, yes, because then it will never stop,”
Many others, she claims, would have simply paid it to avoid the late fee.
Dupnack questioned, “What did you do when you realized this isn’t right?”
“Well, I sent it to Fox 2 because I got it at home, but I felt like if they got me, they’re going to get someone else,” stated Baetz-Matthews.
“We don’t call, we don’t text,” stated Art Thompson, the chief information officer for Detroit.
According to Thompson, it’s the parking department of the City of Detroit. The city became aware of this most recent scam after citizens called and complained that something didn’t seem right.
“This is, unfortunately, the more common approach to trying to scam people out of dollars,” Thompson stated.
If you receive a parking ticket or fine from the City of Detroit, it will arrive in the mail, and we are aware that they are legitimate.
Art and his crew are keeping a tight eye on the scam, but they are unsure of the exact number of victims.
“The main focus is on people attempting to be cunning and deceitful. “It is regrettable that people go to such lengths,” Thompson remarked.
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