Drivers warned of parking scam in Stratford
A SCAM which uses parking meters in Stratford has been exposed by a motorist from Snitterfield who almost fell victim to the car parking con on a routine visit to the town.
Ben Barter, aged 79, recently parked in Sheep Street only to find he couldn’t pay by cash at the nearby parking meter so his only option was to use a cashless parking system which he accessed on his mobile phone.
“I’d come into town with my wife and we were going to have something to eat before going to Holy Trinity Church,” Mr Barter said. “The meter in Sheep Street was covered over so I then had to use the QR code for RingGo to pay for my parking and was charged £3 on my credit card but the payment was declined. In the end I wrote a note and left it on my windscreen explaining I had tried to pay in good faith.”
Confused by the non-payment, Mr Barter contacted Lloyds Bank and spoke to someone in the bank’s credit card fraud department and was astonished to find out just how close he’d come to losing a lot of money.
Mr Barter said: “The fraud team told me there was a parking scam in operation and they declined payment. The scam involves you downloading a fake RingGo app and you enter your personal financial details and are charged £3 for parking but what these crooks are actually doing is accessing your bank details. On this occasion it was my credit card but what if it had been my debit card? I think it’s diabolical and very serious that they’ve targeted people in this way. I’m waiting for a new credit card now having cut up the old one. I want to get the message out there to people to only ever download the correct app from an app store.”
A spokesperson for Warwickshire County Council said: “Warwickshire Trading Standards is aware of incidents in which criminals have over stickered genuine QR codes at car parks with bogus QR codes, directing consumers to fake payment websites where their personal and financial information is stolen.
If you are using your mobile phone to pay for car parking in Warwickshire, always ensure that you use the genuine website or app. You can report scams to trading Standards and obtain advice by phoning the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline: 0808 223 1133 or visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/tradingstandards.
In Warwickshire, there are no QR codes on our on-street RingGo info/marketing, partly to safeguard against this happening.
Advice on the official website of RingGo states: “We have been made aware of fraudsters placing fraudulent QR codes on parking signage which coincides with consumers being bombarded by fraud threats both online and in-person. Recent scams involving fake QR codes on pay-and-display machines that lead users to fraudulent websites to steal their details is one of the latest. Motorists must be aware that RingGo does not use QR codes in any capacity to help drivers pay for parking.”