THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) advised all motorists to ignore all text messages and other notifications sent through messaging apps of the supposed traffic violations coming from the agency.
LTO Chief, Assistant Secretary Atty. Vigor D. Mendoza II said all of them are online scams that are designed to steal information from those who would be victimized, including bank and e-wallet information that could lead to losing the victims’ hard-earned money.
“We are continuously receiving reports of these scams and that’s why we are advising all our clients to ignore these messages in order to protect yourselves from online scammers,” said Assec Mendoza.
“Once again, we would like to remind the public that the LTO does not send any traffic violations through text messages or through any messaging app. If you receive one, that means it came from scammers,” he added.
The messages from scammers come with a link that once clicked, it redirects the users to a bogus LTO site wherein the users are required to input the license plates and other personal information.
The scammers are also requiring their potential victims to input in the bogus LTO website bank information and other details about e-wallets, the intention is to gain access and empty all the money.
“Do not ever type in the license plates of your motor vehicles and give other personal information about your bank or e-wallets accounts. Better yet, ignore all of them because they are certainly scams,” said Assec Mendoza.
Assec Mendoza said they are now coordinating with experts from law enforcement agencies, especially the Philippine National Police and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to run after the perpetrators of this scam.
Under the guidance of Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista, Assec Mendoza also ordered all Regional Directors and District Office heads to intensify the information drive using their respective social media accounts to inform the public of this scam modus.
All LTO officials were also advised to include the information drive against scammers in the conduct of free Theoretical Driving Course in their respective areas of responsibility.
