Fake Parking Ticket Scam Hits the Road

by M.C. Millman

Found a ticket on your car? Think twice before scanning the QR code to pay, as scammers now leave realistic tickets with QR codes that lead people to a dummy website to pay for nonexistent violations.

By paying the bogus ticket, not only do those holding the phony tickets end up paying for a parking violation that doesn't exist, but they also end up sharing personal information, creating risks for identity theft as well. 

Industrious scammers stake out busy streets looking for victims, such as those with out-of-town license plates, as it is presumed they won't know the local parking laws. They will then use a high-tech hand-held device to print out the realistic parking ticket with a QR code to stick on the windshield. Once scanned, the QR directs the ticket holder to a peer-to-peer app like Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle a clear sign that the ticket is nothing more than a scam. 

But not all tickets have QR codes. The ticket might instead direct the ticket bearer to a payment site, or worse yet, the payment link might download malware onto the ticket holder's device. Beware if the "government" site doesn't end in a  dot gov, and if the payments site doesn't start with "HTTPS," indicating that the site is secure for payments and personal information. 

If the violation listed doesn't make sense, or list what law was broken on the ticket, beware of scammers. Even more so if you know you parked legally and yet returned to find a ticket plastered to the windshield.

If the official-looking ticket showed up on your car in a retailer's parking lot, it's another warning sign that it's a fake, as private lots don't have tickets. They tow or boot the wheel instead. 

Always double-check the organization that tickets you. Reach out directly through their official website, not by calling the number listed on the ticket or by following a QR code. Once you're on the website, check if the logo, URL, and phone numbers on the ticket are the same as on the website. If they don't match, you'll know you're in luck - which will certainly be a better feeling than you had when you saw the bogus ticket in the first place.