Fake parking tickets are a scam bedeviling unsuspecting drivers

As if paying a parking ticket wasn’t the cause of enough frustration, consider sending off your bank details to pay a fake ticket, and getting scammed in the process.

According to Carscoops, criminals in Calgary up in Canada are slipping fake violation citations (that look convincingly real) onto the windshields of parked vehicles for the purposes of essentially stealing online payments from unsuspecting citizens.

This form of phishing has been spotted in other locales as well, including New York City and in California.

In Canada, the phony ticket has the Calgary Parking logo printed on it, along with the date of the supposed parking violation, and the requested penalty. The web address is close enough to the official one to trick drivers into thinking that the ticket is valid, and some fall for entering their bank details to make the “payments.”

Carscoops reports that the scammers print their own fake tickets and that some even include QR codes on the citations, making it harder for victims to spot the fraudulent web addresses.

In New York, the scam comes via text message, according to a story on Kelley Blue Book. The message claims to be from ‘New York CityPay’ and warns of a fake unpaid parking invoice of $2.50, that will become a $25 charge if not paid.

Police advise the potential victims to phone the agency that supposedly issued the citation to check that it’s real — but don’t call the number on the ticket.