There has been a recent Cook County traffic violation scam circulating through text messages and emails.
Investigator with the Monmouth Police Department Josh Kramer says these scams are designed to create urgency and get people to act quickly.
“The state of Illinois, Cook County parking one that everybody got in text message with anything that comes, it’s going to look urgent. It’s going to look like, hey, you need to take care of this now. Somebody sees that and thinks, oh shoot, what’s going on?
Take a step back.
I don’t want to say that you could never get a citation in the mail, because that’s not true. But we need to verify where the document would be from, whether it be a municipality, the state, or the county. There are always official numbers to get a hold of these places.
And they’re never going to ask for gift cards.”
Investigator Kramer adds if you receive a message like this, always look up official contact numbers and never call or scan anything directly from the message.
