MVD Warns McKinley County Residents of Toll Payment Text Scams

Fraudulent text messages that claim to be from the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division have been circulating and state officials say the messages demand payment for highway tolls that do not exist in New Mexico. The alert matters for McKinley County drivers because the texts try to harvest personal and financial information and have reached residents through varied delivery methods.

The Motor Vehicle Division issued a Feb. 2 press release warning of a wave of smishing messages that falsely claim to be from MVD or other state or local government agencies and demand payment for outstanding tolls. The Taxation and Revenue Department reiterated the message in a June 13, 2025 release and reminded New Mexicans that “The MVD does not contact customers via text, email, or phone call to issue threats or demand payment. Any such message is fraudulent, and New Mexicans are urged not to respond, click on links, or share any personal or financial information.”

New Mexico does not operate toll roads within the state, and the Department of Transportation has been explicit about the scam’s nonsense: “New Mexico has no toll roads, any message claiming you owe toll fees in our state is 100% fraudulent.” That means any McKinley County resident who receives a message demanding toll payment should treat it as a fraud attempt.

State agencies and the Office of the State Auditor documented how the campaign has changed over time. A July 2021 advisory flagged a sample smishing message that read “New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) Driver License Waiver Validation. Validate your details below” and traced some early texts to a 972 area code. Later reports describe group texts delivered to batches of recipients, out-of-state originating numbers, and, in many cases, messages coming from international phone numbers. Fraudulent texts may include links to fake websites that mimic official pages or may encourage recipients to scan QR codes.

Officials say the texts appear aimed at stealing Social Security numbers and other personally identifying information. To protect yourself, do not reply to suspicious texts, do not click links, and do not scan QR codes. Delete the messages and report them to your phone or email carrier. If a caller is threatening, contact local law enforcement. Victims or those who suspect they were targeted are urged to report incidents to the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General using the Electronic Complaint Submission system and to the Federal Trade Commission through its online complaint portal.

For verification or to question the authenticity of a notice, contact the MVD at 1-888-683-4636. Additional state contacts published with the warning include the Office of the State Auditor hotline 1-866-OSA-FRAUD and investigator line 505-476-3800; Stephanie W. Telles at Stephanie.Telles@osa.state.nm.us is listed as a contact for advisory questions. Media contact for the Taxation and Revenue Department is Bobbie Marquez at bobbiej.marquez@tax.nm.gov or (505) 469-5830.

For McKinley County residents the practical takeaway is simple: treat toll-demand texts as scams, verify any suspicious correspondence by phone, and report attempts so state and federal agencies can track patterns and protect other New Mexicans.