Experts warn public of road toll text scam

Mar 13, 2025, 7:00 PM | Updated: Mar 14, 2025, 12:17 pm

Associate Producer

SALT LAKE CITY — Experts are warning the public about an influx of road toll text messages that are actually a scam.

The FBI warned in 2024 that it saw over 2,000 complaints about scam road toll texts in the span of about a month.

These kinds of scams are called smashing, a combination of SMS and phishing. It’s allowing scammers to use a loophole to make the texts seem more legitimate.

The texts say you have an unpaid road toll and invite users to reply with “Y” to open the link and see what they owe.

Related: Financial grooming led to high financial loss in 2024, report finds

Nexus IT CEO Earl Foote said more people are falling for it.

“It heightens the urgency for people to respond because they think it’s legitimately from a state department of transportation or police department.”

Apple bans links in messages received from unknown senders, but replying “Y” actually marks the link as safe and allows users to open it.

Tech experts advise to never reply to the texts and never click on unknown links.

“If you happen to have a concern that it may be legitimate, the best thing for you to do is to find a main phone number for the entity that you think that that message is coming from,” Foote said.

Alexandrea Bonilla is a producer, reporter and anchor for KSL NewsRadio.

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Experts warn public of road toll text scam

Related: Financial grooming led to high financial loss in 2024, report finds

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