Banner for this month’s mailed City newsletter

An article in this month’s City newsletter announces Linebarger Attorney’s new text message system for collecting past-due fines and court fees.

This month’s “Our Renton” newsletter (delivered in our utility bills) includes a message that I would not have approved if I were on Council: “Please note that any text messaging from Linebarger code 98023 is not a scam.”

Text message origination numbers can be spoofed, and all Renton residents should remain extremely cautious about sending money, filling in passwords, or sending personal information to any link that is text-messaged to them.  It’s erroneous and dangerous to assure residents that a text coming from any specific number is not a scam.  (My son once received a message that came from the official BECU phone number, but was in fact a spoofed account.)

To make matters worse, the subject text messages will not come from the City of Renton,  which has local offices and phone numbers for verifying legitimacy, but instead a Texas-based law firm/ collection agency  that collects delinquent fines and court fees for profit.  This puts the City in the position of trying to convince residents that city payments can be made to an out-of-state entity with a hard-to-remember name, as long as the text message appears to come from a (spoofable) code.

This is a dangerous message. We should all be reminding our vulnerable residents NOT to sign into any website links sent to them via text message or email, unless they are absolutely certain that they know who sent them. And even then it is better to personally navigate to official sites, rather than following links, since a friend’s email can be hacked or spoofed.

The City’s mailer says people can go the rentonwa.gov/court for more information, but very few will.  For those that do, if they navigate through some links they’ll be able to see what a text message from Linebarger Attorneys will look like:

Renton’s website shows that a text message will be of this form, and include a login link where personal information could be entered.  If the information gets entered into a fake website, a scammer would have all they need to shake-down a scam victim.

This is an image from the Linebarger website. This could be cloned, with victims directed to the cloned-site via spoof text messages.

The City apparently put this unfortunate message on their website and in their newsletter because Linebarger Attorneys asked them to.  But I think the City should have said “no” to posting Linebarger’s recommended message, and “no” to any text messages that ask Renton residents to follow a text link to remit funds.

In contrast to the City’s message, The National Council on Aging warns readers about the proliferation of text scams and says: “The “don’t click/don’t respond” rule applies even if you recognize the name of the sender (your bank, for example) and think the text message may be real.”

For anyone struggling to pay a fine or court fees, often Renton’s most financially-challenged residents, accidentally paying the fees to a scam artist could be devastating.  But many additional people are impacted by this message, far beyond the people that owe fines.  By advising people that verifying a text came from a certain number makes it safe, the city is putting all our residents in danger of losing enormous amounts of money, potentially their life savings.

And if anyone loses money to someone spoofing Linebarger’s text number, the fact that the city published “please note that any text messaging from Linebarger code 98023 is not a scam”  leaves Renton taxpayers, all of us, vulnerable to covering the losses.

If you suspect you might owe court fines or fees to the City of Renton, you can find a link on the City of Renton website where you can pay them.  (For security do your own search, but at the time of this writing this is the link). You should also typically be contacted by US Postal Service Mail with instructions, and you should phone the City if you are uncertain why you are being asked for money (phone numbers are given on the City website).  Even if a past-due debt has been sent to collections, the City of Renton should still be able to help you verify whether you truly owe it, and help verify that any payments you make are sent to the right place.