The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office put out a joint consumer alert with the Santa Cruz County DA, advising of fake traffic violation notices. They said the notices appear to come from the court, and could be labeled as “Notice of Hearing – Toll Violation” or “Notice of Hearing – Traffic Violation” or something similar. “Consumers around the Bay Area have been receiving emails and text messages indicating that they have tolls or outstanding tickets that they owe fines for, and they are being prompted to go to a link in order to pay those fines in order to avoid having to go to a court hearing,” SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said. Jenkins warned drivers not to click on the link. “Most importantly, know that if the Superior Court of wants to get in touch with you, they will not be sending you a text or email they will not be telling you to go to a link in order to pay fine through that type of messaging mechanism and not pay anything that you are being told to pay through again that type of text message or email,” she said. Jenkins said her office could potentially prosecute the scammers responsible and asked that people notify her office if they receive fake notices. “We are having investigators look into this but in the meantime, we want to make sure that nobody logs on to pay money that they do not owe to these fraudsters,” she said. ...read more read less