The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office warned concealed weapons permit holders about a nationwide text message scam on Monday.

“Those targeted by the scam have received text messages alerting them that their permit needs to be renewed or changed and offers a link to provide the user’s information,” said Permitium, the company that handles CCW permit applications for Fresno County. “No text messages from Permitium contain links.”

Permitium, which is based in North Carolina, said that the text messages are being sent to random phone numbers throughout the United States.

Sheriff’s spokesman Tony Botti advises targets of the scam to report it to the website usa.gov/stop-scams-frauds.

About 17,500 County, City Residents Hold CCWs

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims told The Fresno Bee in 2019 that about 15,000 county residents hold CCW permits issued by her department. That is the most of any California county.

In addition, the Fresno Police Department had issued about 2,400 CCW permits through last year.