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Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles investigates email fraud

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is investigating fraudulent emails sent to customers that included fake confirmation and tracking numbers.

Department officials issued an email-fraud warning.

Kirsten Olsen-Doolan, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said emails from donotreply@flhsmv.gov about driver's license renewal or confirmation numbers should be deleted immediately.

"We certainly hope nobody was in a situation where they clicked on it and possibly got their computer infected," Olsen-Doolan said.

She said the department didn't know the emails were sent until they started getting calls from people with questions.

Olsen-Doolan isn't aware of previous email fraud situations in her department. She said any time a governmental agency is involved in fraudulent activity customers may think legitimate information thereafter may also be fraud.

The legal and information technology departments are working to make sure this doesn't happen again, she said.

"We're pretty good at investigating things. Hopefully we'll be finding out who is doing this and be able to stop them from doing it again," she said.

She urged everyone to make sure he or she doesn't click anything in the email because it might infect computers with malware, which is software created to disrupt computer operations.

"Tell all your friends," she said.

Audreyanna Loguerre wrote this story online.

Audreyanna is a reporter for WUFT News and can be contacted by calling 352-392-6397 or emailing news@wuft.org.