A “phishing” email is making the rounds, pretending to be from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, or DATCP. Officials there are warning consumers not to click on any links in the email.
The email says, “Wisconsin DATCP has sent you a PDF via Adobe® Cloud. Kindly read through and respond with the required details. Open in Adobe®.”
This message is not from DATCP. Do not click on the “Open in Adobe®” box or anything else in the email. The scammers may be trying to collect credit card information or personal data.
DATCP does not send emails under aliases. However, if you have any doubts about whether a message is actually from DATCP, hover your cursor over the sender’s email address to see the underlying, actual address. Messages from the agency will generally be in the format of firstname.lastname@wi.gov or firstname.lastname@wisconsin.gov. In some cases, the address may include the name of a program rather that an individual’s name, such as “datcphotline.” But the suffix will always be either wi.gov or wisconsin.gov.
For more information or to file a complaint, visit the Consumer Protection Bureau at http://datcp.wisconsin.gov, send an email to datcphotline@wisconsin.gov, or call 1-800-422-7128.