You know, I like to think that I'm a relatively smart and savvy guy, although some might disagree.

Smart enough to sniff out a scam pretty quickly anyway.

And yet just recently, I almost fell for one.

It was a scam text message, one of the seemingly dozens that I get every week now.

And you probably received a similar message.

It was one of those fake toll notifications

where you're told that you owe money because you passed a toll booth without paying. And the reason that

it almost worked on me and kind of tripped me up is that I had recently done exactly that when I was

out of state. I came up on the toll. Didn't have an easy pass. Didn't have any cash on me. So I just

blew through it like an irresponsible citizen. And I knew I'd get a ticket and figured I'd just pay it whenever it comes in. It just so happens that a few days after my dastardly toll-dodging crime, I got this text message. So my first reaction was to take it at face value. The text said I had an unpaid toll. I did in fact

have an unpaid toll. So I was just about to click the link, but then I thought better of it. I realized

that they probably wouldn't send a text to get me to pay a toll. And also the wording of the text

was weirdly aggressive, threatening that my license might be imminently suspended if I don't pay right away,

which, of course, is not true. So on second thought, it seemed suspicious. And then on third thought,

I realized that it was very obviously a scam, and I was an idiot for even considering clicking

on the link. So I deleted the text and moved on, slightly embarrassed. Still haven't gotten the ticket for the toll, by the way. But this put things in perspective. If I could, you know, come somewhat close to falling for a scam as a relatively young emphasis on relatively vigilant adult who's very familiar with the internet and all these

different scams. And it stands the reason that elderly people are getting ripped off constantly.

As a 39-year-old, my general familiarity with these kinds of scams was enough to set off the

alarm bells at the last minute, stop me from doing something

really stupid. But if I was your 75-year-old grandfather, it'd be a different story. Now, put another

way, enormous amounts of money are being stolen, primarily by foreigners who despise this country.

This problem has long since reached epidemic levels. The vast majority

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