Fake email traffic ticket from NY?

[bradepb]

OK I recently went on a trip to Buffalo from here in MI and today I got a "ticket" supposedly from the NY state police for speed in a 55 zone. It actually looked fairly legit but was in my spam folder, you had to open an attachment to view the ticket. My antivirus detected a virus so I didnt open it and deleted.

This is one heck of a coincidence , the only place I gave my email was for a hotel reservation. although I suppose it might show up somehow if my plate was run, I dont buy my plates online or anything and dont think the dmv has my email and I dont go more than 5mph over especially out of state.

What do you guys think, have you ever heard of a ticket by E-mail in NY state

 

[pbm]

I got the same e-mail....it's another scam.....just delete it.

 

[bradepb]

yeah, I was 99% sure of that but its just so weird I was just in NY for last weekend.

 

[Pablo]

I got a mess of those on one email account. My googly accounts must have stopped them. Looked pretty hokey, plus the fact that I have never actually driven in NY and live on the left coast, were all small clues.

 

[glum]

Scams are getting more and more clever. My wife semi-frequently gets scam "delivery notices" from USPS. She asks me about them every time, and I don't understand what the major malfunction in her brain is, but I always explain that the USPS doesn't issue delivery notices that way, how would they even get her email address, etc....

One thing that helps is to use a separate email address for every site you register on. There are free services that can do this for you. It is an added up-front inconvenience, but it can pay off when you start getting spam or scam email at a particular email address, because then you know the exact source, you can easily verify it's fake (or spam), and can shut that email address off at will. For example, if this "ticket" from NYS came to you at "[email protected]", you know straight away it's not from NYS. You can tell who is sharing your email address or who has lax security.

I own my own domain and that's another way to (extremely easily) use separate email addresses everywhere.

 

[OilNerd]

100% confirmed scam. Saw an article in our paper about it. NYS does not send tickets via email.