Altona's Police Chief is cautioning against yet another new scam that's hit the area. 
    
Dan Defer explains, it is a text message indicating you've been caught speeding by photo radar or red-light camera and that you must click the provided link to view the infraction.

"This would never happen," he said, noting if you had been caught by photo radar or a red-light camera you would be notified with an actual ticket sent to your mailbox. "That is the ONLY way that you'd know."

In the case reported to Altona Police Service, Defer said that text had a pretty obvious red flag.

"The offense date hasn't even happened yet. It's next week," he explained, noting the text indicated the infraction took place on March 18, 2024. 

It's errors like this that Defer says we need to carefully scrutinize these messages for. 

"There's so many little warning signs," he explained. For example, common spelling mistakes. In some cases of the Canada Revenue Agency scam, Defer notes the scammers attempt to have victims send money to the IRS, the tax administration with the United States government. 

"If all else fails, call the government office and DON'T use the number provided in the suspicious message," instructed Defer. "Look it up, find the real phone number and contact them." The same rule applies if you get a supposed text or email from your bank. "Use the phone number of the back of your credit card, use the phone number that you KNOW for your financial institution."

Meantime, late Thursday afternoon, the Winkler Police Service took to social media explaining that people in that city had been getting messages of a similar traffic infraction nature, but they were emails instead of texts.