Scammers put fake QR codes on parking meters to intercept parkers’ payments

The City of Austin has a warning to ignore the stickers on the parking meters.

The fraudsters put fake codes on parking meters to trick people into paying them. The parking enforcement officers found fraudulent stickers on pay stations in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.

San Antonio police warned the public of the scam on December 20, saying that people attempting to pay for parking using thoseQR codes may have been directed to a fraudulent website and submitted payment to a fraudulent vendor. In Austin and Houston, similar scam were found.

The Austin transportation department started looking at their meters after learning of a scam in San Antonio, where more than 100 pay stations were stickered with fraudulent codes, Fox 7 Austin reported last week. According to an article, Austin officials checked the city's parking pay stations and found fraudulent codes on 29 of them.

The domain passportlab.xyz is offline after people were directed to a "Quick Pay parking" website. It's not clear how many people were tricked into paying the fraudsters.

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The city doesn't use QR codes.

"We don't use the codes because they are easy to fake or place on the devices," said the Austin parking division manager. Industry leaders told us that this was a possibility. Payments can be made with coins or credit at the meter or with the Park ATX mobile payment app.

Austin city officials said in a press release that they are continuing to inspect the city's pay stations to make sure there aren't any additional QR codes. Austin urged people to call the police if they see someone tampering with a pay station. "Any person who believes they were a victim of a credit card breach due to recent parking meter payments should file a police report and notify their card issuer immediately," the city said.

Houston officials found five meters with fake codes and removed them. Houston does not use a payment app, but it does have a parking meter with a payment app.

It could be done anywhere, even in Texas, where the scam seems to have been centered. Make sure you pay the city directly if you see a QR code on a parking meter.