CLEVELAND — By now, you've probably received a text message claiming you have unpaid toll fees.
News 5 first alerted you about this scam in April 2024. Now, there is a solution to stop it.
RELATED: Highway toll scams targeting thousands of summer drivers
This week, Google launched an update to its scam detection technology for the Google Messages app. The app is available for most Android phones and uses artificial intelligence to flag fraudulent messages.
Good Morning Cleveland anchor Mike Brookbank spoke with Alberto Pastor, a Senior Project Manager at Google, about how it works.
"So, this new protection that we just released is looking at the patterns from the message content," said Pastor. "Basically, you know, losing money or giving away sensitive information."
If a scam text is detected, an alert will pop up with the option to block and report the sender. Google encourages users to report all suspicious messages.
"One of our main sources to get intelligence about those scams is reports from users. And actually, thanks to those reports, we are able to identify new types of scams and the protection, you know, will evolve catching those," said Pastor.
If you don't have an Android phone or the Google Messages app, you can report suspicious text messages by forwarding them to the number 7726 (SPAM).
