Toll road scams are in overdrive: Here’s how to protect yourself

Driving is a way of life in the US. The country’s sprawling suburbs and nationwide network of highways and toll roads is testament to this. But it also creates a large potential pool of victims for scammers to target, as American drivers have been finding out this year.

One report claims there has been a 604% surge in toll road scam texts since the start of the year, with the week beginning March 2 recording a 98% increase from the previous week. It has prompted the FTC, governor of New York and attorney general of California to issue warnings to the public.

It’s time to get clued up on toll road scams.

What do toll road scams look like?

These are effectively text-based phishing (smishing) attempts. The end goal is to trick you into handing over your personal or financial information, or potentially even to downloading malware to ...