Photo // Rafael Tortolero

DON’T FALL FOR THE SCAM. A phone displays a common example of a scam text requesting a payment for an unpaid toll.

By: Rafael Tortolero

Multimedia specialist

You or someone you know might have received a text message saying you owe money for unpaid tolls that you must pay within a short timeframe. This is most likely a scam. Scammers have been pretending to be tolling agencies in order to steal people’s money and identities. 

These texts usually come with a link that takes you to a fake website, where you’ll be asked to provide personal details and payment information as well, putting your identity at risk of being stolen. 

Text messages scams have been around for a long time and unfortunately they don’t seem to be stopping any time soon. This is not the only kind of text-messaging scam out there, or “smishing,” short for SMS phishing.

Another common one is package-tracking scams, where you receive a text saying you have an undelivered package and they require extra information to deliver your package, with the purpose of obtaining your personal information. 

Never click a link from a text like this or anything else coming from a strange source. Scammers want you to feel desperate and act quickly – if you were to wait a day or two, the website they linked to would most likely have been taken down already.

Always make sure the text comes from a legitimate source. An official toll agency will never send you a text from a “hotmail.com” or “yahoo.com” domain. If you would like peace of mind about your toll status, get the information straight from indianatollroad.org. 

Usually the best way to deal with smishing is to just ignore it, but if you would like to take a step further, you can always report it by pressing the “report junk” button on your phone or even forwarding it to 7726 (SPAM) and then deleting the text.