Finding somewhere to park in today’s busy towns and cities can be an absolute nightmare. Even once you’ve found a car park and nabbed yourself a space, knowing how to pay for it is an entirely different matter. There are usually all sorts of different signs and instructions around the place, which can be very confusing if you haven’t parked there before. It seems as if some nefarious characters in Guildford are looking to take advantage of this confusion, putting up QR codes to ‘pay’ for parking that aren’t genuine that drivers need to look out for.
A Warning from the Council
Guildford Borough Council has had to warn people parking their cars in Guildford car parks that they might have been the victim of an elaborate scam. It seems as though fake QR codes were put up in places around some car parks in the town, encouraging people to scan them in order to pay for their parking. People who scanned the QR code, found on stickers on the likes of signs, payment machines and barriers in the car parking lots, were taken to a site where they were asked to enter their bank account or card details.
As a result, the Council had to issue warnings to stop people from falling for the trick, saying that it doesn’t use QR codes at any of its car parks, meaning that if you see one then it is a scam. The problem is that the site that the QR codes take people to looks just like a regular one, so those who aren’t aware of the situation might well enter their details believing it to be a genuine site for parking in Guildford. Obviously you should never give away your bank or card details to someone that you don’t know or trust, lest you could lose money.
Enforcement Teams on the Lookout
Catherine Houston, the Lead Councillor for Commercial Services with Guildford Borough Council, said:
We are aware of the increase in QR code parking scams across the country and I want to reassure residents that our teams regularly inspect our car parks to keep them safe and free from fraudulent activities. Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods so if you do spot a QR code in one of our car parks, please don’t scan it; report it to the council instead.
There will also be enforcement teams heading to car parks each day. These enforcement teams will be tasked with the job of removing any QR codes or other such false payment information that they see, with Houston saying, “By raising awareness of such scams, we help to protect drivers from being misled so that residents and visitors can use our car parks in confidence”. If you are parking in a Guildford car park and want to be sure that you’re not being scammed, the best thing to do is to use the RingGo app, which is an official one that Guildford Council use for its car parking payments.
As Houston pointed out, this isn’t just an issue for Guildford residents to look out for. Instead, it is something that has been happening up and down the country, with criminals trying to take advantage of the advancement of technology and the naivety of some people. As QR codes become more and more popular, helping people to head straight to the correct website after scanning them, it is likely to result in a rise of similar such scams. Guildford residents have been warned, but tourists to the town need to be on the lookout too.