Extremely Legitimate State Government Guy Here Totally Not A Scam Reply STOP to Block
One of the most bizarre and frustrating things about life in Florida is that the
state government has decided to eschew official .gov domains in favor of a
random smattering of .com domains, for seemingly no other reason than
appearing pro-business. Or maybe anti-government? Regardless, it definitely
doesn't make it easier to help constituents avoid scams.
Here's what I had to do to figure out whether this text was legitimate::
- Go to fl.gov which redirects to www.myflorida.com
- Click to see the list of state agencies, which takes you back to dos.fl.gov and lists the Department of Financial Services' homepage as www.myfloridacfo.com
- That homepage indicates Florida really has a "Chief Financial Officer" role (are Florida politicians just LARPing at this point?) and that it matches this guy's name and lists a phone number matching the one in the text message
- Browse around for storm-related pages and find this page which references (but does not hyperlink to) PrepareFL.com
- Visit PrepareFL.com only to realize it redirects back to the previous page
I really wish this was an isolated incident but there are so many public-private partnerships and privatized services in the state, that it's really hard to tell when you're dealing with local and state government and when you're being scammed or phished.
Want to file a new LLC? You'll want to do that at efile.sunbiz.org. Receive a tollbooth fine from the Department of Transportation? Just punch in your credit card over at www.sunpass.com. Need to amend your Beneficial Ownership Information to comply with FinCEN? Just respond to an e-mail from MyFloridaCorporateFilings.com and oh wait nevermind that one's a scam.
For fuck's sake. Why can't y'all be normal?