Laramie police warn residents about statewide text scam

A text message claiming to be from the Wyoming DMV and demanding payment for unpaid traffic fines drew a warning from Laramie police, who said the same message was being reported by residents across Wyoming. The department said it had received several questions about the text and urged people to treat it as fraudulent.

Police said the safest response is simple: do not reply and do not click any links that may be included. Instead, anyone with questions should verify the message through an official law-enforcement or agency phone number rather than engaging with the sender. That matters because the scam leans on urgency and fear, pushing people to act before they stop to check whether the demand is real.

The warning fits a pattern that has been building around Wyoming. On March 11, 2026, the Wyoming Department of Transportation warned that scammers were sending texts that claimed to come from the “Wyoming DMV” and demanded payment for traffic fines, while threatening license or registration suspensions, extra fines and even legal action. WYDOT said it does not send those texts, does not collect ticket fees and does not call itself “the DMV.”

State court officials issued a similar alert on June 3, 2025, after multiple reports of texts telling recipients to pay supposed unpaid traffic tickets by the end of the week. The Wyoming Judicial Branch said the scam used a fake website and asked for a $6 payment, while legitimate court communications would not send people to third-party links or request payment by text.

Federal consumer officials have also flagged the same tactic. The Federal Trade Commission said it saw a spike in reports last month about scam traffic-violation texts that use QR codes, fake court notices and threats of default judgments or enforcement to pressure people into scanning a code.

CyberWyoming’s 2026 scam report adds more local context. Over the prior two years, text messages were the second most common contact method in reported Wyoming scams, with 36 reports, and government impersonation scams were a notable category. The report also found that phone calls and social media were used as well, but text remained a frequent entry point for fraud.

Laramie police have warned about similar tactics before. In 2019, the department said a scam text used the recipient’s name and listed family members. In 2024, Laramie police and the Albany County Sheriff’s Office warned about callers posing as law enforcement and demanding payment for supposed fines. The latest alert underscores the same lesson for Albany County: suspicious messages should be ignored, not answered.