Over the last couple of days, people all over the city have gotten texts, allegedly from “the city of Boston,” that they have a small unpaid “parking invoice” and that unless they go to the link in the text they will be charged “a late fees of 35$.”
Alert readers will note some obvious immediate problems with the text: It comes from a non-617 number, it features sloppy grammar, Americans would never write “35$” and the link seems kind of odd for a Boston city agency (also, but more obscurely, Boston does not issue “parking invoices”).
But of course, it’s Sunday, I’m not fully caffeinated and so I put my trust in my Norton anti-virus software to protect me from any evil, and tried the URL in the text…