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Google readies blocks on "unpaid toll" scam texts [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-05-14

Send people a text demanding money, get paid! But one scam will soon be less profitable, assuming Google nails the implementation of its new block on "unpaid toll" messages in Android.

It willstart rolling out on Tuesday and is just one of several Android updates Google announced ahead of its developers' conference next week – along with cosmetic software changes and the expansion of its Gemini AI helper to Android-powered smartwatches and cars.

Text scams related to phony unpaid tolls have been on the rise. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received roughly 60,000 complaints related to toll scams last year, and fake unpaid toll texts nearly quadrupled between January and late February according security software maker McAfee.

"We've just been hearing from users like constantly that this is a problem," Sameer Samat, Google's Android ecosystem president, said in a CNN interview.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/05/14/google-readies-blocks-on-unpaid-toll-scam-texts.html

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