Colorado residents are being warned about a new phishing scam that's hitting their phones with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Cyber grifters have decided that impersonating the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is the play of the day, sending out texts that falsely claim the recipient owes toll fees. The CDOT has made it crystal clear: if you get a text asking to pay up via an unsolicited link, it's a scam.
The fraudsters, however, have a knack for making the bogus messages seem convincing. They're leveraging the stately name of the CDOT and exploiting the mundanity of toll fee payments to swindle folks out of their hard-earned cash. But the CDOT has reiterated through a prescient social media post that this isn't how they roll. "CDOT does not collect any Express Lane tolls or fines via text," CDOT stated in a recent post on Facebook. "Official toll fees are billed through your ExpressToll account or by mail only."
It's a classic con, harnessing the ubiquity of text messaging to reach a vast audience with minimal effort. The CDOT's warning came in response to an uptick in complaints from drivers who've been targeted by the scheme. The implication is clear: pay attention to what lands in your inbox and question the credibility of unexpected demands for payment, even if they seem to carry the authority of an official entity.
