Phony DMV sites put New Hampshire residents at risk

Providing authentic ID verification to the phony New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles websites during the online license renewal process may result in identity theft, according to the state DMV's website. Richard C. Bailey, Jr., director of motor vehicles, explains that scammers are using a fake website similar to the DMV's to collect victims' personal and credit card information. "We have had a number of reports of drivers in New Hampshire and other states being duped into providing sensitive information to scam websites," Bailey, Jr. told the news source. "We certainly encourage people to make use of online driver license renewal, but they need to make sure that they are dealing with the real DMV website." In order to do so, Bailey recommends typing the DMV's web address into the browser instead of conducting an online search via search engines. Jim Van Dongen, spokesman for the state Department of Safety, added that web searches will turn up impostor sites that offer a "guaranteed" license renewal for $29.99, the Eagle Tribune reports. The DMV doesn't have an exact figure of how much residents have lost because of the fraudulent sites, and doesn't believe it has the capabilities to shut all of the sites down.