E-ZPass, the transponder-based toll payment system available to drivers traveling on the East Coast, does send out invoices to the address on file for your license plate when you avoid toll collectors without having a transponder. However, they do not send these via e-mail.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike alerted drivers and e-mailers to a scam e-mail currently making the rounds that purports to be from E-ZPass. It is not.

This notice works because, hey, you might have driven on a toll road without noticing. If you do have an E-ZPass or compatible toll-paying device, maybe it didn’t work. As long as you actually own a car, it’s certainly possible that you drove it somewhere. It’s more plausible than phishing notices from a bank you don’t conduct business with, or fake PayPal notices sent to an address not registered with PayPal.

Here are some hints that might help you determine the fakey fakeness of this particular message.

• When E-ZPass does send out bills to non-customers who accrue tolls without paying, they don’t send them initially to your e-mail account. They send them to the address associated with your car’s registration. As we said above.
• It is extremely unlikely that an interstate coalition of toll-collecting entities would send you e-mail from wptraningacademy.com. That doesn’t appear to be a working URL at all, let alone an E-ZPass service center address.

WARNING – E-ZPass Phishing Scam Alert! [Pennsylvania Turnpike] (via WGAL)

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