Watch Out For This Sneaky Toll Phone Scam That's Affected Thousands Of People

“We’ve noticed a balance of $11.69 remaining on your record. To prevent a late fee of $50.00, please visit _______ to settle your balance.”

A text from someone alleging to be your state’s toll collection agency may not immediately ring alarm bells. Summer is road trip season, and if you drive, you know how easy it can be to pass through a toll road and incur an unexpected fee.

But you should be wary if you receive a text about a sudden outstanding toll charge.

There’s a new, increasingly popular scam in which bad actors impersonate state toll collection services, saying they’re from “New York SUNPASS” or “NJ Turnpike toll services,” for example. They want to trick you into giving up your credit card and driver’s license to pay them for fake toll charges. And it’s working.

Transportation authorities in Kansas, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, and Nebraska have all recently warned people about a rise in toll text scams. FBI Baltimore supervisory special agent Keith Custer told HuffPost that the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has received over 10,000 complaints about these toll scam texts in the past few months.

Although most people who are reporting the complaints recognize the scam as a scam, Custer said “a number of people did click through on the links that were in the text messages.”

He noted that the scammers appear to move from state to state after their domains get shut down; Custer said the FBI is seeing the most complaints from Oregon, Connecticut, Michigan and Washington at the moment.

The scammers usually want you to just pay a nominal fee –– that’s by design. Amy Nofziger, the director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network, said a text asking you to pay