There\u2019s a good chance you got a few of these this year,scam texts that say you have an unpaid tab for tolls and that you need to pay right away. And as always, they come with a handy link where you can pay up and avoid that threat of a \u201clate fee.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Of course, links like those took people to phishing sites where people gave scammers their payment info, which led to fraudulent charges on their cards. In some instances, the scammers took it a step further by asking for driver\u2019s license and Social Security numbers, key pieces of info for big-time identity theft.<\/p>\n
Who knows what the hot new text scam for 2026 will be, yet here are several ways you can stop text scams in their tracks, no matter what form they take:<\/p>\n
How Can I Stop Text Scams?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Don\u2019t click on any links\u00a0<\/strong>in unexpected texts (or respond to them, either). Scammers want you to react quickly, but it\u2019s best to stop and check it out.<\/p>\n Check to see if the text is legit.<\/strong>\u00a0Reach out to the company that apparently contacted you using a phone number or website you know is real\u2014not the info from the text.<\/p>\n Get our <\/strong>Scam Detector<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> It automatically detects scams by scanning URLs in your text messages. If you accidentally tap or click? Don\u2019t worry, it blocks risky sites if you follow a suspicious link.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It started with a DM.\u00a0And a few months later, it cost her $1,200.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, we brought you the story of 25-year-old computer programmer Maggie K. who fell for a romance scam on Instagram<\/a>. Her story played out like so many. When she and her online boyfriend finally agreed to meet in person, he claimed he missed his flight and needed money to rebook. Desperate to finally see him, she sent the money and never heard from him again.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the twist\u2014he wasn\u2019t real in the first place.<\/strong><\/p>\n When she reported the scam to police, they determined his images were all made with AI. In Maggie\u2019s words, \u201cThat was the scariest part\u2014I had trusted someone who never even existed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Maggie isn\u2019t alone. Our own research earlier this year<\/a> revealed that more than half (52%) of people have been scammed out of money or pressured to send money or gifts by someone they met online.<\/p>\n Moreover, we found that scammers have fueled those figures with the use of AI. Of people we surveyed, more than 1 in 4 (26%) said they\u2014or someone they know\u2014have been approached by an AI chatbot posing as a real person<\/strong> on a dating app or social media.<\/p>\n We expect this trend will only continue, as AI tools make it easier and more efficient to pull off romance scams on an increasingly larger scale.<\/p>\n Even so, the guidelines for avoiding romance scams remain the same:<\/p>\n The job offer sounds simple enough \u2026 go online, review products, like videos, or do otherwise simple tasks and get paid doing it\u2014until it\u2019s time to get paid.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a new breed of job scam that took root this spring, one where victims found themselves \u201cpaying to get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n The FTC dubbed these scams as \u201cgamified job scams\u201d or \u201ctask scams.\u201d<\/a> Given the way these scams work, the naming fits.<\/p>\n It starts with a text or direct message from a \u201crecruiter\u201d offering work with the promise of making good money by \u201cliking\u201d or \u201crating\u201d sets of videos or product images in an app<\/strong>, all with the vague purpose of \u201cproduct optimization.\u201d\u00a0With each click, you earn a \u201ccommission\u201d and see your \u201cearnings\u201d rack up in the app. You might even get a payout, somewhere between $5 and $20, just to earn your trust.<\/p>\n Then comes the hook.<\/p>\n Like a video game, the scammer sweetens the deal by saying the next batch of work can \u201clevel up\u201d your earnings.\u00a0But if you want to claim your \u201cearnings\u201d and book more work, you need to pay up. So you make the deposit, complete the task set, and when you try to get your pay the scammer and your money are gone. It was all fake.<\/p>\n This scam and others like it fall right in line with McAfee data that uncovered a spike in job-related scams of 1,000% between May and July,<\/strong>which undoubtedly built on 2024\u2019s record-setting job scam losses of $501 million.<\/p>\n A proper recruiter will reach out to you by email or via a job networking site. Moreover, per the FTC, any job that pays you to \u201clike\u201d or \u201crate\u201d content is against the law. That alone says it\u2019s a scam.<\/p>\n In the case of job offers in general, look up the company. Check out their background and see if it matches up with the job they\u2019re pitching.\u00a0In the U.S.,\u202fThe Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers a list of businesses<\/a>\u202fyou can search.<\/p>\n Any case where you\u2019re asked to pay to up front, with any form of payment, refuse, whether that\u2019s for \u201ctraining,\u201d \u201cequipment,\u201d or more work. It\u2019s a sign of a scam.<\/p>\n Prince Harry, Taylor Swift, and now the Today<\/em> show\u2019s Al Roker, too, they\u2019ve all found themselves as the AI-generated spokesperson for deepfake scams<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the past, a deepfake Prince Harry pushed bogus investments, while another deepfake of Taylor Swift hawked a phony cookware deal. Then, this spring, a deepfake of Al Roker used his image and voice to promote a bogus hypertension cure<\/strong>\u2014claiming, falsely, that he had suffered \u201ca couple of heart attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n2 – Romancing the Bot: AI Chatbots and Images Finagle Their Way Into Romance Scams<\/h2>\n
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3 – Paying to Get Paid: The New Job Scam That Raked in Millions<\/h2>\n
Whatever form they take, here\u2019s how you can avoid job scams:<\/h3>\n
Step one\u2014ignore job offers over text and social media<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Step two\u2014look up the company<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Step three\u2014never pay to start a job.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
4 – Seeing is Believing is Out the Window: The Al Roker Deepfake Scam<\/h2>\n