New Westminster Police are hoping to put the brakes on a scam targeting motorists.
The traffic offence scam notifies victims via email informing them they’ve been caught on camera breaking the law. Victims are then told to pay the fines or else they’ll be reported to police.
“When you do receive an email, it specifically says it’s from police and it has a link that’s saying you need to give us your personal information or money. It’s absolutely false,” said Sgt. Jeff Scott with New Westminster Police.
Earlier this year, the scam surfaced in Calgary. Victims received emails claiming to be caught on camera committing a traffic offence. One email even asked the victim to click on a link which police believe contained a virus.
“Now if you were to click on this attachment it would most likely be some form of malware such as spyware to record future events you do on your computer, or even ransomware that could lock up the contents of your computer,” said tech expert Tristan Jutras.
Jutras added the best advice is to never open email attachments from unconfirmed sources.