Unpaid Phishing texts on the rise

The image shows two smartphone screens side by side. The left screen displays a text message claiming to be from the City of New York, reminding the recipient of an unpaid parking invoice with a $35 daily fee if not paid. A link is included. The message indicates the sender is not in the contact list, with an option to report as junk. The right screen shows a website titled “NYC Department of Finance Parking and Camera Violations” with fields for full name and zip code.

This is one image of several when it comes to the onslaught of texts that have been sent to many people including some of us that do the tech podcast, TSB and TSN.

This issue has started in December, according to the article. The problem is, that they are actually using a legitimate tool known as the Google Redirect.

These redirects then point to a false domain that could be ending in .com to get people to enter.

This image is supposed to be one of many types of pages that could get you to click. Jaws AI says:

The image displays two smartphones showing screens of a supposed NYC parking payment website. The left phone shows a message from NYC CityPay indicating an unpaid parking invoice in New York, with a total amount due of $4.60, warning about a late fee of $35. It prompts the user to “PROCEED NOW”. The right phone displays a form asking for personal details such as full name, birth date, state, zip code, billing address, email, and mobile phone number.

So, we know that the messages we’ve talked about getting tell us to type a Y, then click on the link. This is because imessage now blocks links from being clicked from unknown senders, and from what I could gather, this fixes that. But in this article, it tells you that the Google redirect bypasses this and allows one to click using an i-device.

The article does recommend people to not respond, and report the messages as spam if available.

US cities warn of wave of unpaid parking phishing texts is the article.

Have fun! Let’s see who picks this up.