Google vows to stop scam E-Z Pass and USPS texts plaguing Americans | Hacker News Reader

Google vows to stop scam E-Z Pass and USPS texts plaguing Americans

arstechnica.com

20 pointsBlackPlot5 comments

It was wild how quickly the E-Z Pass scammers knew that I had been on a road trip and passed through those tolls. I live in TX and drove to MA for Christmas last year and these started right when I got back. They are almost def on the inside at this point.

Not sure if they are smart or just lucky.

A friend of mine got evicted illegally from the homeless shelter and got a moderately sized settlement which was a challenge for him to receive because he made it to his 50s without ever getting a bank account.

He started getting scam texts from someone who kept needing money to get a bus ticket to visit him and one time claimed to be at the local airport needing money for a cab ride. One of our friends convinced him to take a cab to the airport himself to meet this "person" who wasn't there.

We were thinking that they might have targeted him based on public records but I can say in the last few months I've met five people who are think are scammers sending me DMs on the like of Mastodon, Bluesky and Tumblr.

> Damages are not specified in the complaint, which accused the Lighthouse enterprise of committing wire fraud and violating the [U.S.] Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Lanham Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, among other allegations.

I guess this is a first step toward some larger legal goal? It’s not even clear if “Lighthouse” is the name of an overseas company or just the name of the service.

Why don't we just create a better system? In order for you to text / call me, you must first request to be able to text / call me; you can't modify this request or add your own language to it, this request identifies your device. Also allow me to toggle off "Allow new requests" and I feel like the phone starts working the way it should.

Excuse me while I laugh...

Oh wait, you're being serious...

Let me laugh even harder...

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