The following has been published by Which? Scam Alerts - Scam alert: new parking fine scam text - Which?

This sneaky scam message aims to trick you into handing over personal and financial details

The 'parking fines scam' message continues to circulate as a phoney, but convincing, text about a non-existent unpaid fine.

The message aims to get you to act quickly and includes a malicious link. 

We first covered this scam in September 2024 and it continues to circulate. The example we saw in 2024 led to a copycat government website. These types of websites aim to earn your trust by mimicking official organisations and well-known brands, often these are government bodies, transport companies or couriers.

Typically, these scams charge you a fee for something you can do for free or tell you you’ve done something wrong and need to pay a fine to avoid further payments or even legal action.

Below, we examine this new scam text and website and explain how you can spot this scam and report it.

Parking fine text scam

A scam text telling you, you have an unpaid parking fine

The text from a random number tells you: ‘an unpaid parking fine was found on your vehicle,’ and that you need to ‘pay immediately.’

It includes a dodgy link hosted by 'qrco.de', which is a QR code generator. We have previously warned about the dangers of QR code scams and the rise in QR codes being used in subscription traps. 

For the purposes of our investigation, we examined this link and found the malicious site mimics an official gov.uk government website.

A copycat government website asking you to pay a parking fine:

The dodgy phishing website is a very convincing copy of the official government website, complete with accurate logos, branding and font.

It links to other pages on the website, such as ‘parking fines and penalty charge notices, ‘challenge a parking fine’ and ‘parking and public transport’ actually leads to the official government website pages on these topics.

We wrote random characters into the ‘vehicle registration’ box and each time where given a bogus PCN (penalty charge) number and told we owed a £25 fine.

The location listed for the fine was also the area we were located in, meaning that the page could be using the user’s IP address to know where they’re located to make the scam more convincing.

After this page, you’re asked for more personal and payment data including your name, email, phone number and home address to pay the fine.

The only sign indicating that this website was fraudulent was the URL. All official government pages start with gov.uk.

Spotting and reporting this scam

If you receive an unexpected text message, don't be tempted to click on any links or follow instructions to log into any accounts. Links can contain malware that could infect your device and lead to scammers doing further damage.

If you're concerned that you've clicked a dodgy link, you should perform a factory reset on your device and consider installing antivirus software. Do not log into any accounts until you have done so. 

There are four steps you can take to check whether you're on a copycat website:

You can report scam websites to the National Cyber Security Centre and texts can be forwarded to 7726.

You can also report the scam to Action Fraud. If you lose money to a scam, contact your bank immediately using the number on the back of your card.