Is this text a scam? Shine a light on it

How the checker decides what to light up

Every warning sign it looks for comes from an official source, and each one in your result names it. The checker reads the words of the message, finds every link and email address in it, and compares them with what scam-fighting agencies say scammers do. It works the same way for a text, an email, a WhatsApp message or a voicemail you have typed out.

• Pressure and threats. “Final notice”, “within 12 hours”, late fees, a suspended licence or account, arrest. The FTC, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and Australia’s Scamwatch all name urgency as a core scam tactic.
• An odd way to pay. Gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfers, payment apps or a bank transfer to a “safe account”. The FTC says only scammers tell you to buy a gift card and hand over the numbers, and only scammers demand cryptocurrency.
• A request for a code or password. A one-time code lets someone into your account. The FBI says companies generally don’t contact you to ask for your username, password or one-time passcode.
• A link to the wrong website. If the message says it is from E-ZPass but the link goes somewhere else, that is a mismatch. The checker works out each link’s registrable domain: the part of the address an organisation actually owns.
• Lookalike addresses and shortened links. A spelling that is one letter off, a familiar name with a different ending, or a link shortener that hides the destination: CISA lists these as signs of phishing. Unicode’s security report describes the trick of borrowing letters from another alphabet that look the same.
• “Hi Mum, new number” and “wrong number” openers. A family member who suddenly has a new phone and needs money, or a friendly stranger who texted the wrong person. Scamwatch and Canada’s Anti-Fraud Centre warn about both.

Worked example: the “unpaid toll” text

The example in the box is the kind of text the FBI described in its April 2024 warning about toll smishing: a small unpaid balance, a bigger late fee if you wait, and a link. Here is what the lantern picks out, and why.

1. The link goes to pay-tolls.example. The address starts with e-zpassny.com, the real E-ZPass New York site, but that is only the left-hand decoration. The website it really opens is pay-tolls.example, which no toll agency on our list uses.
2. “Reply Y, then exit and reopen this message.” Evri warns that scammers ask for this so your phone treats them as a known sender and the link becomes tappable, switching off a protection your phone company added.
3. “FINAL NOTICE”, “within 12 hours”, “late fee”, “suspension”. Pressure. The FTC says the scam toll texts tell you to pay immediately.

The safe move is the same whatever the result: check your toll account by typing the agency’s address yourself, or call the number on its website or your statement. Our toll text page lists the official toll websites we confirmed, state by state.

What a clean result means, and what it doesn’t

A message with no flags can still be a scam. Scammers change their wording all the time, and some write in a calm, polite way. The checker only knows the web addresses we confirmed for the organisations on our lists, and it can’t see where a shortened link ends up. So every result ends with the same reminder: No flags doesn’t mean safe. When in doubt, contact the organisation using a number or website you find yourself.

Being caught out by a scam is nothing to be ashamed of. As Scamwatch puts it, it can happen to any of us. If you have already tapped a link, paid or shared details, call your bank or card company now, using the number on your card, and see where to report it.

Common mistakes

• Trusting the name at the top. Scammers can make a text or call look as if it comes from a real organisation. Australia Post says criminals can set the sender name of a text so it looks like theirs, and Canada’s Anti-Fraud Centre says not to trust caller ID.
• Replying “STOP”. Canada Post says not to reply to suspicious texts, even when they tell you to text “STOP”.
• Calling the number in the message. Scamwatch says to call back on a number you have found yourself, on the organisation’s website or in the phone book.
• Checking the link by opening it. Paste it into the checker instead, or copy the address without tapping it.

Around the holidays, watch out for parcel and toll texts in particular: Canada’s Anti-Fraud Centre lists fake shipping messages and unpaid toll texts among its twelve frauds of the holidays. For shopping-site scams, the Foxglove Goods fake shop checklist helps, and if an email’s sender looks odd, MailTraceKit reads its full headers.