WASHINGTON – State officials are warning Americans not to respond to a surge in text in a collection of fraudulent road tolls.
Texts impersonating State Road toll collectors are trying to make financial information public, such as credit, debit cards, and bank accounts.
They are what we call smishing scams. This is a type of phishing that relies on SMS text to trick people into sending money or sharing sensitive information.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Maril said he received it from the statewide Geauxpass Toll system.
“It’s a scam,” Murril posted on Facebook last week. “If you’ve ever received texts that appear suspicious, be sure to click on them. You don’t want your personal information to be stolen by a scammer.”
Even states that don’t charge driver tolls are noted ascending rises.
“There are no roads in Vermont, but travelers can mistake these scams for real toll operators in other states,” Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said in an announcement of the video release service posted on Instagram.
Cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks said earlier this week that threat actors registered more than 10,000 domains of fraud. The scam impersonates toll and package delivery services in at least 10 US states and Ontario, Canada.
Apple links to iPhone messages received from unknown senders, but the scam tries to bypass that protection by inviting users to reply with “Y” and resume text.
A warning from the FBI last April said the text used almost identical language and falsely claimed that the recipient had either unpaid or unpaid tolls. Some people may threaten a fine if the recipient fails to pay.
At the time, the FBI asked those who had been scammed to file a complaint with the IC3 Internet Crime Complaint Center and to delete the text. The FBI did not immediately respond to requests for guidance updated on Thursday.
