Received the following email a few days ago:

Dear,

Thank you for completing your payment using the Property Tax Information System. Your transaction reference number is 6971841833.

The following items were paid for on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:31:01 +0100:

The total amount of the purchase including a $4.94 convenience fee was $4048.35.

Please note that it may take up to two weeks for your property tax payment to be reflected in our records after receiving your payment.

Please print attached notification and keep it as a receipt for your records. If you have any questions regarding your transaction, please contact a King County representative. Please do not respond to this email.

Sincerely,

King County Ecommerce

Needless to say, this raised a red flag with me, since I do not own, and have never owned any real estate located in King County, Washington.  There was an attachment named “payment confirmation” or something to that effect (which I did not open) and I have since deleted the email.  I recommend that any of my colleagues receiving this email do the same. I haven’t received anything similar in any of my other email accounts, so I’m 99% sure that whoever sent this could only have gotten this email address through SOT.  Here’s a link to King County Washington’s website with details of what they call “an apparent scam.”

Regards,
Scott Perry