WASHINGTON — A warning has been issued by the FBI to caution Americans against falling prey to scam text messages related to road toll collections, after the agency received upwards of 2,000 complaints this month.
These fraudulent texts pose as legitimate state road toll agencies and aim to trick recipients into divulging financial details such as credit card numbers, debit card details, or bank account information. These scams are known as “smishing,” a type of phishing that exploits SMS text messages to deceive individuals into sharing sensitive data or sending money.
According to the FBI, these text scams are circulating from one state to another, using nearly uniform language. The messages falsely assert that the recipient has an unpaid toll, which could lead to fines or the suspension of driving privileges if not settled. The FBI advises anyone who receives these scams to report them to its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) available at www.ic3.gov, and to promptly delete such texts from their devices.
Cybersecurity experts at Palo Alto Networks have pointed out that a threat actor has registered more than 10,000 domains to support these scams. The fraudulent operations are not only imitating toll services but are also targeting package delivery services across at least 10 U.S. states as well as Ontario in Canada.
On iPhones, although links from unknown senders are blocked, the scam attempts to circumvent this barrier by prompting users to reply with “Y” to continue the conversation.
