The most recent textual content rip-off making the rounds is a message that (poorly) impersonates your state DMV with a menace to rescind your license until you pay excellent charges. NPR experiences that departments of motor autos in New York, Florida, and California have alerted residents to the rip-off, but it surely has been noticed somewhere else too (together with Utah, the place I dwell).
How the DMV textual content rip-off works
This rip-off purports to be from the DMV or transportation division in your state and warns of unpaid charges for site visitors violations or tolls. The message directs recipients to a hyperlink to pay these supposed penalties or threat shedding their license (or “driving privileges”) or face authorized motion. It additionally references a state statute that may very well be reliable (albeit unrelated to the warning), however that does not imply the textual content itself is.
The DMV rip-off at the moment circulating is much like the unpaid tolls rip-off and the unpaid parking price rip-off, each of that are examples of smishing, or SMS phishing. The sort of assault depends on textual content messages to attempt to persuade targets to click on malicious hyperlinks and disclose private or monetary data or obtain malware to their machine within the course of. Scammers partaking in smishing typically try to impersonate reliable establishments, akin to banks and authorities businesses.
In accordance with information from Robokiller, Individuals acquired 19.2 billion spam texts, of which smishing is an instance, in April 2025. That is a median of 63 messages per particular person.
What do you suppose to date?
Textual content rip-off purple flags to look at for
The DMV rip-off could seem apparent, however unhealthy actors hope that some recipients will probably be swayed by an official-looking textual content that threatens real-life penalties and act with out investigating additional. That is why try to be cautious of any message, textual content or in any other case, that calls for pressing motion or invokes an emotional response.
When you learn extra fastidiously, you may discover extra purple flags. The sender could also be an e mail handle or non-local (even worldwide) cellphone quantity— official texts from authorities businesses sometimes come from five-digit numbers. The title of the division could also be incorrect, such because the Florida State Division of Motor Automobiles (faux) as a substitute of Florida Freeway Security and Motor Automobiles (actual). The URL to pay the supposed tremendous will not be an official state web site (https://utah[dot]gov-etcwirs[dot]cc, for instance), and it will not be clickable, so it skirts your machine’s safety features. And, in fact, there could also be minor spelling and grammar errors and odd formatting.
