By Teresa Carr

Adams County Senior Council

Administrative Assistant

Merry Christmas From Adams County Senior Citizens Council, Inc. Staff!

An excerpt from the National Institute on Aging: Drivers: Keep an Eye Out for New Toll Road Scams Criminals pretend to be highway officials requesting payment after your trip. Cybercriminals are now asking drivers to pay fake highway tolls. The scam began gathering steam in early March, according to the FBI, and it appears to be growing more prevalent.

How the road toll scam works: People receive a text message, which appears to be from a highway authority or a transponder company like E-ZPass, notifying them of supposedly unpaid tolls. The amounts are usually small: Some of the texts have used figures like $11.69 or $12.51. You need to pay the toll, the scammers say, to avoid a late fee of $50. The text includes a link for payment.

Instead of sending the same text everywhere, scammers are often tailoring them to specific states, the FBI has warned. The link in the text “is created to impersonate the state’s toll service name, and phone numbers appear to change between states,” the FBI notes. So if you live in Pennsylvania, the website link might be something like https://myturnpiketollservices.com (a URL that scammers have included in some of their texts). The criminals may even be targeting people who recently traveled.

“Some people think, ‘It’s such a small amount — I should go ahead and pay it so I don’t have to pay the extra $50,’” says Melanie McGovern, director of public relations and social media for the International Association of Better Business Bureaus.

How to avoid the road toll scam:

• Understand the scam. This type of scam is what fraud experts call “smishing.” It’s the same as phishing, but using text messages instead of emails. In both cases, the goal is the same: to entice you to click a link or open a document that might download malware or allow criminals to access your personal information, credit card info or bank accounts.

• Don’t click on the link. Never open a link in an email or text, especially if the message arrives unannounced. “If you didn’t initiate the communication, don’t engage directly,” Velasquez says. McGovern’s advice: “If you get this kind of text message, delete it.”

• Go to the source. Instead of opening the link, contact the entity that supposedly sent it. If you received a text that appears to be from E-ZPass, for example, and you think the toll could be legit, go to its website or call its customer service line to confirm if the charge is real.

• Watch for emails. Scammers aren’t just using texts. In New York, E-ZPass holders have received emails asking them to download an invoice for unpaid tolls, according to an alert from the New York State Thruway Authority.

• Report the scam. If you receive one of these texts, report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, IC3.gov. You can also report the scam to the Better Business Bureau or your state’s attorney general’s office.

Just A Thought: “Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world.” ~Annie Lennox