The Philadelphia Department of Revenue is warning residents that scammers have created a fake website that imitates the city’s official water bill site.
In an announcement Tuesday, the Philadelphia Department of Revenue said that scammers created a website called “myphillywaterbill.com,” which is designed to deceive customers into providing their payment information.
“While the legitimate website for paying water bills is named MyPhillyWaterBill and has optimized search-engine branding, the official hyperlink does not share this name,” the Philadelphia Department of Revenue said.
The Philadelphia Department of Revenue said the scammers used a tactic called “domain spoofing” or “URL spoofing,” which is used to trick people into providing personal information or downloading malware.
“In this case, scammers created a fake website with a domain name similar to the legitimate branding, despite the city website typically using ‘.gov’ or ‘.org’ extensions,” the department said. “This can trick users into believing they are engaging with the genuine website.”
The Philadelphia Department of Revenue said that online payments remain secure, and that customers are encouraged to go to phila.gov/pay or phila.gov/revenue for direct access to the city’s secure payment portal.
Customers will need their nine-digit Water Access Code, which can be found on their bill, to pay.
The Philadelphia Department of Revenue is encouraging people who were impacted by this scam to contact the FBI or the Federal Internet Crime Complaint Center.