No, Your Toll Payment Is Not Overdue

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chinese criminals have made more than $1 billion from scam text messages sent out across the U.S. and the world. The texts warn of unpaid fines and lure unsuspecting victims to fork over their credit-card details. WSJ’s Robert McMillan explains how the scheme works and why it’s been so hard to stop. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: Pig-Butchering: A Texting Scam With a Crypto Twist The Slaves Sending You Scam Texts Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know, Bob, right before we got on this call, one of our producers actually just got a text that I want to read to you.
0:14.2	Oh.
0:15.5	So it says, easy pass, final notice.
0:18.9	Oh, Chinese scam.
0:21.3	Sorry. Our colleague Chinese scam. Sorry.
0:23.5	Our colleague Bob McMillan covers cybersecurity,
0:26.8	and he's been looking into the kind of scam
0:28.3	that one of our producers just got fished with.
0:31.6	If you fail to pay within 24 hours,
0:34.7	we will take the following actions.
0:36.5	Report to the DMV violation database.
0:39.1	Suspend your vehicle registration.
0:41.5	And you may be prosecuted.
0:43.0	Then there's a link where you're supposed to pay.
0:45.8	Oh, that sounds awful.
0:47.7	You better pay that right away.
0:50.5	Don't tell people they might actually click it.
0:54.6	You may have received some of these texts yourself.
0:57.3	A lot of people have, all across the country.
1:00.1	So I've received several of these text messages telling me I owe $699 to Massachusetts Easy Pass.
1:06.5	So just a couple days ago, I get a text message talking about I need to pay my toll ways
1:09.8	or my license is going to be revoked at my nearest DMV.
	...

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