How to Spot the Toll Text Scam the FBI Says Is Surging Again

The text looks official. It says you owe a small unpaid toll, or that the DMV has a record of an outstanding ticket, and that your registration will be suspended or your license revoked unless you pay within a day or two. There is a link, the amount is just large enough to feel real and small enough to pay without thinking, and the clock is ticking. Do not click it. The FBI and a growing list of state agencies say this scam is surging again, and the link does not lead to any government office. It leads to a fake page built to steal your card number and your identity.

These messages have hit drivers in nearly every state, often more than once, because the people behind them rotate phone numbers and web addresses faster than carriers can block them. Here is how the scam works, how to recognize it in seconds, and what to do if one of these texts has already reached your phone.

What the Scam Looks Like

Security researchers call this a smishing attack, a blend of SMS and phishing. Criminals send fraudulent text messages that pretend to come from a toll authority or a state motor vehicle agency. The message claims you have an unpaid toll or a balance on your account, then warns that the account will be suspended, that late fees are mounting, or that you face prosecution and the loss of your driving privileges if you do not pay at once.

The toll versions impersonate real systems that drivers recognize. The Federal Communications Commission has logged complaints about texts posing as E-ZPass across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, FasTrak in California, and I-PASS in Illinois, and authorities in North Carolina have warned about messages spoofing NC Quick Pass. The DMV versions skip tolls entirely and claim you have an unpaid ticket, often citing a fake administrative code and a fake deadline to make the threat feel procedural and real.

Whichever version arrives, the goal is the same. The link sends you to a page that copies the look of an official website and asks you to pay the balance or verify your information. Once you enter a card number or personal details, the criminals have what they came for, and some versions also push you to install software that hands them deeper access to your phone.

How Big the Problem Has Become

This is not a handful of stray messages. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, received more than 60,000 complaints about unpaid toll text scams in 2024 alone, and the agency has issued repeated alerts as the volume has climbed rather than faded. California Attorney General Rob Bonta put out a consumer alert urging residents to tell friends and family after a surge in text-based toll scam activity, and the Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles warned drivers about messages threatening prosecution and license suspension. West Virginia’s attorney general issued a similar smishing warning to residents there.

The reason the scam keeps coming back is that it is cheap to run and easy to scale. Sending tens of thousands of texts costs almost nothing, the phone numbers are spoofed or disposable, and even a tiny response rate turns a profit. That is why a message you deleted in March can reappear, word for word, in June.

How to Spot a Fake in Seconds

A few signs give these messages away almost every time. The first is urgency. A real agency does not demand payment within hours under threat of immediate license suspension by text message. The second is the link itself. Look closely at the web address before you tap anything. Legitimate government sites end in .gov, and most toll authorities use a clean .com address you can recognize. Scam links often misspell the agency name, add odd hyphens, or end in unusual strings that have nothing to do with the real site.

Other tells include a fake administrative code, a specific date for penalties to begin, and a request to pay through a method that bypasses your normal account. The simplest rule of all comes from the FCC and the FBI: government agencies and toll operators do not collect payments through links sent in unsolicited texts, and FasTrak has stated plainly that it does not request payment by text with a link to a website. If you are unsure whether you actually owe a toll, never use the link in the message. Open a new browser window, go to your toll provider’s official site yourself, and log in to check your account directly.

What to Do If You Get One

If a suspicious toll or DMV text lands on your phone, do not click the link and do not reply, because a reply confirms your number is active and invites more. Delete the message. Before you do, you can report it, which helps investigators map the campaigns. File a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and report the text to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov. On most phones you can also forward the spam text to 7726, which spells SPAM, to flag it with your carrier.

If you already tapped the link and entered a card number, act quickly. Contact your bank or card issuer to report the card and ask for a replacement, and watch your statements for charges you do not recognize. If you entered a password you use elsewhere, change it on every site where you reused it. Where you handed over enough personal detail to enable identity theft, consider placing a free fraud alert or a credit freeze with the major credit bureaus, and review your accounts at IdentityTheft.gov for a step-by-step recovery plan.

The single habit that defeats this scam is to treat any unexpected payment demand by text as guilty until proven innocent. Tolls and tickets are real, but the way you verify them should always be a website or phone number you looked up yourself, never the one a stranger texted you. Share that rule with the people in your life who are most likely to pay first and question later, because the scammers are counting on exactly that reflex.

Why These Texts Keep Working

Scams that survive for years do so because they are built around human reflexes rather than technical tricks. A small dollar figure feels easier to pay than to dispute. A threat to your registration or license taps a real fear, since most people depend on their car to get to work. And a short deadline shuts down the instinct to pause and check. The criminals are not betting that you are careless. They are betting that you are busy.

Toll authorities and state agencies have responded by posting fraud warnings on their official sites and by repeating one message: they will not collect a past-due toll or fine through a link in an unsolicited text. Phone makers have added tools that strip links out of messages from unknown senders, and leaving that protection switched on is one more layer between you and a fake payment page. The most reliable defense, though, costs nothing and never expires. When a payment demand arrives out of the blue, slow down, look it up yourself, and let the deadline pass while you verify. A real balance will still be there when you check through the front door.

Sources:

• https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-governmental-affairs/how-spot-and-avoid-toll-road-payment-scam-texts
• https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/tell-everyone-attorney-general-bonta-warns-consumers-surge-text-based-toll-scam
• https://dmv.colorado.gov/press-release/colorado-dmv-issues-urgent-warning-on-new-text-scam-threatening-prosecution-and
• https://www.consumerreports.org/money/scams-fraud/texts-about-tolls-are-almost-always-scams-how-to-tell-a2954184895/