(WXYZ) — Has your phone been blowing up with texts about unpaid toll bills? Mine sure has, and the same is true for many of us at 7 News Detroit.
I decided to ask about it on the WXYZ Facebook page, and we got more than 4,300 comments from people across Michigan and others out of state.
Maisha Floyd of Detroit received two text messages last week saying she had an unpaid toll bill. The first one had a +63 country code number at the top, indicating it was from the Philippines. The EZ Pass one came from an odd Outlook account and warned, "if you fail to pay by March 6, 2025, you will face penalties and legal action."
Normally, Floyd would have ignored these texts, but she told me she'd recently traveled and used toll roads in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico.
"I've never been through a toll, and I didn't know what to expect. So, when I got the text message, I didn't think anything about it," she explained.
Floyd followed all the directions to copy and paste the link in her Safari browser, and it took her to a payment page.
"It was actually professional looking. I didn't see any red flags with it. I honestly didn't," she said.
She tried to pay using her debit card, but got a pop-up indicating the card was denied. That's the trick! The scammers want you to keep trying different cards, so they have those numbers to use themselves.
The Better Business Bureau warned about this scam in January after the organization named it one of the emerging scams of 2024.
"How many reports did you get about the scam last year?" I asked Melanie McGovern, a spokesperson for the BBB.
"In our latest scam tracker report, it showed we had about 800 people report this to us," she said.
See more of our interview with the BBB about the scam in the video below
It doesn't appear to be letting up in 2025.
So, how can you avoid text message phishing scams? The BBB says:
- Look for red flags like an out-of-country area code or odd email address
- Don't use any links provided
- Search for toll agencies directly
- Know these agencies do not send text messages requesting payment
The Ohio Turnpike also posted a massive scam alert at the top of their homepage.
So, bottom line, whatever you do, don't click — or copy and paste — the link.
In fact, while I was writing this story, I got another fake toll bill text!
"I received these text messages, too. So that's why we posted about this on our WXYZ Facebook page. So, thank you for reading that post," I told Floyd.
"Thank you for posting that really because I honestly didn't know. I probably would have left my card unlocked, and I probably would have had anything happen by now," she said.
If you receive one of these phishing text messages:
- Mark it as spam
- Delete it
- Report it to the BBB.
