NJ sheriff’s office issues warning to millions of E-ZPass users

The Atlantic County Sheriff's Office is alerting E-ZPass users across New Jersey about yet another scam.

• There are currently more than 35 million active E-ZPass accounts
• Nearly 60 million E-ZPass tags are in use
• Roughly 90% of drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and Atlantic City Expressway use E-ZPass

And with millions of customers, this is a potential gold mine for scammers, especially if you aren't paying attention.

E-ZPass account scam

Atlantic County Sheriff Joe O’Donoghue recently took to Facebook to alert drivers about a widespread text messaging scam, which has been making its rounds for several weeks now.

This scam, which looks like an authentic message from E-ZPass has only one goal: to steal your personal information.

What a scam E-ZPass message might look like

Experts say if you get a suspicious text message like this one, ignore it. Do not click on the link to even look at the website.

Scam texts might not look exactly like that one as fraudsters have been changing what they look like lately.

What to do?

If you think you accidentally gave scammers your personal and/or banking information by responding to a message like that, you need to act very quickly.

You should immediately contact your credit card company and/or bank, and E-ZPass, and keep a very close eye on your finances. It's also probably a good idea to make sure your phone hasn't been hacked.

Protect yourself from the E-ZPass scam

Keep in mind that E-ZPass does send legitimate text messages to its customers. The best thing you can do is go to their websites directly — don't click on any links, just type their website addresses into your browser:

• New Jersey — https://www.ezpassnj.com/

• Pennsylvania — https://www.paturnpike.com/e-zpass

FBI issues alert to E-ZPass users

This scam has been going around for quite some time. In fact, it is so widespread that the FBI is involved as they have received thousands of complaints from numerous states.

If you received one of these bogus messages or were a victim, you can report it via the FBI website.