Scam Alert: EZPass Final Notice
We’re halfway though Cybersecurity Awareness Month and scammers are really stepping on the gas! This week a friend of mine received a text claiming to be from Ezpass saying it was their “Final Notice” with a link to “Pay Now.” The problem? She doesn’t have a car anymore after moving to the city a few years ago. The second red flag? She didn’t think she had an account with that name … but just to make sure, she smartly googled it.
Ends up that the company name of the electronic toll collection system is spelled E-ZPass not Ezpass. She was kind of excited that she had actually received a scammy text and sent me a screenshot of it knowing that I write about such things. She asked me why she would receive something like this. Hmmmmm. Good question!
I dissected the text further for her. There were no grammatical mistakes … which is very unusual for text scams (the shifty ones are getting smarter apparently).
The text came from a number across the pond (+44 7380 219443). I was pretty sure that a company claiming to be a U.S. service for toll roads, bridges and tunnels across the eastern and mid-western United States would not be coming from the United Kingdom. Knowing that scammers often use SMS farms and spoofed numbers to flood people with phishing texts, I did some quick digging and couldn’t find any credible evidence that number was a legitimate number at all and certainly not one tied to any official organization.
In April of last year I wrote a short blog alert titled Do Not Click about what was then a new toll smishing text scam. Things haven’t changed much but the text being sent these days is quite lengthy now. It says that you “have an outstanding parking traffic ticket” and to “please pay immediately before enforcement occurs, to avoid license suspension and further legal complications.” It also has this wording at the bottom making it look like you can unsubscribe: “If the link isn’t clickable, reply Y and reopen this message to click the link, or copy it into your browser.” Don’t do that!
My friend said upon first glance that she almost replied with an N. Don’t do that either!
The Ohio Turnpike has formally warned of a resurgence in scam texts demanding payment for unpaid tolls but this one about parking tickets associated with a toll collection service was news to me. After doing a bit more digging, I learned that Minnesota Department of Transportation had explicitly warned that “Final Notice” E-ZPass texts are fake and that the text scam has been circulating for over a year. Guess which state my friend is from? You guessed it! Minnesota. If you can survive a Minnesota winter, ya betcha can survive a text scam!
Things to remember in a nutshell:
– Never click on links in unexpected texts or emails.
– Google it or go straight to the website if you think it could be legitimate.
– Mark it as spam or junk, delete it and report it to the FTC to help protect everyone else.
– And finally, always turn on multi-factor authentication wherever possible. Stay guarded, stay well – and don’t let the mean guys take your data in the fast lane.
Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions exists to protect you, your family and your employees from the damages of identity theft. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help or have any questions or concerns. We are available to you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD) and [email protected].
