A multitude of students and teachers have made reports on unpaid toll messages that have appeared as of 2025. These messages have spread across America due to a group that has been dishing out scam messages to any phone they could reach.

The FBI has received over 60,000 complaints about toll scams directed at virtually anyone in America. The computer science teacher, Mrs. Higgins, has figured that the widespread use of SMS scam messages was a result of easy access to phone numbers.

“I assume that our phone numbers are all rather public data, and you can infer from phone numbers where people live,” Higgins said. “You can figure out what states have tolls and what don’t, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the fact that I am registered as a k-tag user is where they got my data from.”

Because of this, some students have noticed these scams appearing in their messaging apps. The scams are relatively easy to spot, especially for Junior Arvindh Sriram, after he took a closer look at the questionable links in the messages.

“The links looked extremely suspicious. They didn’t have a ‘.com’ or anything,” Arvindh said. “I went to Illinois, and it was the same toll system, yet the link did not match the actual link.”

Some others were informed by their family members. Junior Joseph Gillen was told by his father that the notifications he received were fake.

“I was getting toll charges, and I kept getting texts on my phone that I had missed toll charges and stuff like that,” Joseph said. “I was confused, and I wanted to talk to my dad about it. He also had a couple of scams.”

Most of these scam messages are accompanied by a link to a page that scammers use to syphon more personal information from the user. This leaves people at risk of further exploitation from the toll payment scam.

“Often, as you click on the link, if you’re on your cell phone, it’ll get data. It could receive data about where you’re at, your general area in the United States, what kind of phone you use, and it can get the eyepiece off your phone,” Higgins said. “I know it’ll collect information about whether or not you’re using Android or iOS, so they can get that information without you providing much information. I think they can’t get credit card numbers from you unless you offer that.”

However, dealing with these issues is simple. One can simply avoid these scams by refraining from interacting with the messages received. 

“The biggest thing is not to click on the links, as you may get a text message or an email or something. Open up a new tab, go directly to their website, and check your account balance through that,” Higgins said. “You just have to watch out, in this case, I’m verifying where the phone number is coming from, like if it’s an international phone number, so I know it’s not a K-tag situation. But even if I’m not sure, I prefer to just go directly to their website without clicking on the link just to verify.”