Toll Texts, Fake Jobs, AI Romance Cons & World Cup Ticket Fraud

Toll-fee text scams keep flooding phones nationwide

Fake "unpaid toll" texts remain one of the most widespread scams in the country. Multiple state authorities report the same pattern: Victims receive text messages impersonating state toll agencies, motor vehicle agencies, and court systems, claiming they owe unpaid road tolls and directing them to click a link to pay immediately. This isn't a small problem — the FTC highlighted that consumers reported losses amounting to $470 million in 2024 due to scams initiated via text messages, and SMiShing text messages for unpaid tolls were specifically identified as a top text scam category. The FBI's numbers confirm the scale: the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) corroborated this trend, having received 59,271 complaints related to toll scams in 2024 alone.

The tell: toll operators typically don't use text messages to collect on overdue accounts, and do not use threatening language to rush customers into action. And as Michigan's Attorney General has reminded residents, government agencies do not take payment through prepaid gift card, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or a payment app.

What we're seeing: task-based "job" scams are AVASC's top alert this week

AVASC's own case data flags task-and-product-rating job scams as our highest-risk cluster right now, with 210 reports and a threat score of 82 — mostly starting with unsolicited recruiting over WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS, then moving victims onto fake task portals that show a balance they must "top up" to withdraw. This lines up closely with a long-running FBI warning: the FBI warns of scammers offering victims fake work-from-home jobs, typically involving a relatively simple task, such as rating restaurants or "optimizing" a service by repeatedly clicking a button. The pattern the FBI describes matches what victims report: victims believe they're making a profit since it's common to allow victims to withdraw earnings, but over time, victims must deposit larger amounts of money to complete their tasks, which does not appear concerning at first because larger deposits have meant larger commissions. Then the trap springs: at a certain point, victims are met with a new and extremely large deposit requirement, which comes when they have already deposited a significant sum and haven't been able to withdraw it, so their account is frozen.

Federal regulators are treating this as a growing threat, not a fringe scam: FTC data shows reported losses to job and employment scams exploded from $90 million in 2020 to $501 million in 2024, with task scams alone growing roughly 400% in 2024.

AI is supercharging pig-butchering romance-investment scams

AVASC continues to track a rise in AI-assisted romance-investment fraud, and outside reporting backs this up. Analysts describe a fundamental shift in scale: in the past, scammers manually managed dozens of conversations at once, but in 2026, criminal syndicates now use agentic AI to automate the grooming process, with these AI agents able to maintain thousands of deep, personalized relationships simultaneously. The money involved is enormous — cryptocurrency addresses associated with pig butchering operations received over USD 9.3 billion in 2025, with the average victim losing USD 178,000 before the fraud was detected or reported.

The good news is enforcement is catching up fast. In one recent action, a broad international operation led by Dubai Police, working with the FBI and China's Ministry of Public Security, resulted in at least 276 arrests, the shutdown of nine scam centers, and the freezing of more than $701 million in crypto linked to money laundering. Separately, in February 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the seizure of about $61 million worth of Tether tied to pig-butchering scams in a North Carolina–linked case. New York's Attorney General offers simple protective advice: beware if someone pressures you to invest within a very short time frame, never rush into any investment, and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

World Cup ticket scams peaked as the tournament just wrapped

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup having just concluded, ticket and hospitality scams remain a live concern for anyone still settling payments or seeking refunds. The FBI warned early: the FBI issued a Public Service Announcement to warn the public that cyber threat actors are conducting spoofing attacks against the FIFA website, using spoofed websites designed to pose as legitimate, with branding and product listings used to further identity theft and monetary scams. The bureau specifically flagged that actors were engaging in this activity to collect personal information, sell fake World Cup tickets and hospitality products, and possibly facilitate other malicious activity. The human cost is real: one Indianapolis fan paid $22,000 over several months via Zelle on behalf of friends and family for tickets that never arrived, and his bank refused a refund because the payments were made willingly.