SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco drivers should be warned. There are fake parking tickets being issued.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) confirmed Thursday a Reddit post of a picture showing a fake parking citation going around the city. The parking ticket also has a QR code where scammers can collect payments.
Also, the date on that ticket is for May 5, 2023, which is one day after the ticket was posted online. The photo on the right is a photo of what a real SFMTA parking ticket looks like; the left is a photo of the fake citation.
The QR code in the fake parking ticket brings you to this website (pictured below on the left). In comparison, the official SFMTA website to pay your citation is pictured on the right.
The two websites look almost identical. The main difference is found in the URL of each website. The official SFMTA parking citation website ends with a “.com” compared to the fake website which ends with a “.app”
The QR on the fake parking citation takes you to a homepage that looks eerily similar to SFMTA’s. KRON4 determined the only link that works on the homepage is the “pay a parking ticket” page. It’ll then ask you for a ticket citation number. Whatever number you enter, the citation number will be #14010040 — like it says on the printed ticket above. It will take you to a Square link that will ask for $60.
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SFMTA says it has been notified by multiple people regarding the fake tickets. The agency added its Parking Control Officers are ordered to remove the false tickets they see.
KRON4 reached out to SFMTA for further comment and is waiting for a response.
A similar situation happened in Santa Cruz last December. A 19-year-old was arrested in a parking ticket scam that had numerous fake citations placed on vehicles near the beach.
