The DGT warns about a new fine scam sent by email

The Spanish Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) has raised the alarm over a new scam that uses the pretext of traffic fines to defraud people

It was the DGT itself which, through its Twitter account and after receiving several messages on the network from users who had received an email, confirmed that this body is not the sender of these messages.

Yesterday, the official account of the Directorate-General for Traffic received several tweets from users who had received emails, supposedly issued by the authority responsible for traffic matters, notifying the recipient of an outstanding fine to be paid amounting to no less and no more than 1,530 euros.

“You are hereby notified of a penalty for a photo fine”

Given the suspicious communication procedure, which does not show any data identifying the vehicle or the driver, together with other details such as the poorly written text, worthy of the worst online translator on the internet, the recipients of these emails asked the DGT to confirm or refute them.

These alerts led the agency, a few minutes later, to publish its own message from its official account, warning its followers that it had not sent these texts and that, consequently, everything pointed to yet another example of a fraud or phishing attempt using the pretext of traffic fines.

Once again, the use of penalties for traffic violations serves criminals as an excuse to send fraudulent emails with which to deceive their victims who, surprised by this situation, follow the instructions or steps appearing in these emails, allowing the theft of sums such as the 1,530 euros requested in this email, or of other data such as account numbers, bank card details or security codes… which increase the risk of falling victim to scams like this one or the one that in April also used as its excuse fake fines, of which the DGT was neither the issuer nor the party responsible.

The fine notification procedure

As we indicated in this article on how to find out whether you have outstanding fines, the methodology used by the various bodies competent in traffic matters includes electronic notification of penalties only if the driver has registered for services available to citizens, such as the Electronic Traffic Directorate (DEV), accessed through the Electronic Headquarters.