“You have an unpaid toll balance. Pay now to avoid late fees.” Almost everyone has gotten this text. Here’s why it’s fake, and how to check for real.
Perfect for sending to someone who won't read a whole article.
“FINAL NOTICE: You have an unpaid toll of $4.15. Pay within 24 hours to avoid a $50 late fee and suspension of your registration.” Then a link.
Maybe you drove through a toll last month. Maybe you didn’t. Either way, four bucks seems easier than dealing with it. That’s exactly what they’re hoping you’ll think.
The toll road already knows where you live. When you owe a toll, the real bill comes to the address on your car’s registration, not as a text from a random number with a link.
When you drive through a toll without paying, a camera snaps your license plate. Your plate is tied to your registration, and your registration has your home address on it. So the toll agency already has everything it needs to mail you a bill. It doesn’t need to guess your cell number.
Scammers, on the other hand, don’t know anything about you. They send the exact same text to millions of phone numbers and wait for someone who happened to drive through a toll recently. With that many texts, plenty of people do.
These fake government notices are exploding. Reports of scammers pretending to be government agencies jumped 40% last year, and fake toll texts led the pack.
The link takes you to a page that looks just like your state’s toll site. You type in your card to pay the $4.15. Now they have your card number, and sometimes your name and address too. The four dollars was never the point.
Take a look at the web address in these texts. It’s always something close but not quite right, like “ezpass-tollservice.com” or a random string of letters. Real toll agencies use their official website.
Notice the ticking clock? “24 hours or else.” Real government offices move at the speed of paperwork. Scammers move at the speed of panic. Urgency is the tell.
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