CON artists are targeting Rugby motorists with parking ticket scams.
Rugby Borough Council (RBC) has urged residents to ignore scam text messages and emails claiming an unpaid parking fine needs to be paid ‘immediately’.
The council issued the warning after receiving a number of reports from residents who have recently been targeted by the hoax.
The messages, sent from random numbers and accounts, include a link where the recipient can pay the fraud fine online.
The link – usually hosted by ‘qrco.de’, a QR code generator – leads to a convincing copy of an official Government website, which requests personal and payment data from the recipient in order to pay the ‘fine’.
The council urged residents to always check the address of the website contains ‘gov.uk’ – as per all official Government and council websites and email addresses – and never ‘qrco.de’.
Coun Claire Edwards, RBC’s spokesperson for communities and homes, regulation and safety, said: “The council’s parking team never contacts residents or businesses via text message and only makes contact by email – using the address [email protected] – when replying to a customer’s email.
“While the scam website looks official, the text messages and emails expose it’s a fake by linking to the site’s URL which, in the majority of reported cases, has been hosted by ‘qrco.de’ – a QR code generator – and not an official ‘gov.uk’ URL.
“Variations of the parking fine scam messages have been sent to thousands of people across the country in the past few weeks, some claiming to be from local councils and others from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which has never even issued or dealt with parking fines.
“We’re aware of cases where these text messages have been sent to people who do not even drive, so we want to help spread the word about this scam and stop our residents and businesses getting caught out.”
Her Liberal Democrat counterpart Coun Noreen New added: “Everyone needs to remain vigilant when receiving unexpected requests for money, passwords or other personal information and it’s best to assume it could be a scam until proven otherwise, so if in doubt, check it out.”
Visit the National Cyber Security Centre website at www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/phishing-scams/spot-scams for information on how to spot a text, email, website or telephone ‘phishing’ scam, and how to report it.
Visit the National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre website at www.actionfraud.police.uk/reportscam to report lost money or a hacked device after engaging with a phishing scam.
A SECOND parking ticket scam – in which Pay and Display machines have stickers attached directing drivers to bogus sites – is also in operation in Rugby.
A spokesperson for Warwickshire County Council said: “We would caution motorists from scanning any QR codes or bar codes that may appear on our Pay and Display machines.
“Any QR or barcodes affixed onto our machines have not derived from Warwickshire County Council.
“Our Pay and Display machines take cash payments and we provide the RingGo parking App to enable drivers to pay for their parking.”
