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Parking payment firm RingGo has issued an urgent scam warning as a result
A couple have been left £370 out of pocket after falling victim to a fraudulent QR code scam at a car park in Northumberland.
Jess Hagan, 28, and her partner Jake Freeman, 29, scanned what they believed to be a legitimate code on a pay-and-display machine at the Spanish City plaza car park in Whitley Bay on Saturday.
The code directed them to a website that looked just like that of parking payment firm RingGo.
When the site told them their transaction had been declined, the pair simply paid for their parking in cash at the machine instead.
It was only the following morning that they discovered the true cost of the encounter.
Ms Hagan, who lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, told the BBC: "Eventually, it said the payment had declined and we hadn't been charged, so we went to pay at the machine after all."
"We got on with our day, but woke up the following morning with a bunch of notifications from the bank.
"Someone's absolutely rinsed my partner's bank account. We were baffled."
A total of £370 had been siphoned from Mr Freeman's account overnight.
Ms Hagan said neither the QR code nor the website it linked to raised any suspicion at the time.
"The website looked fully legitimate. There were no red flags, it had all the branding, even privacy policies at the bottom.
"There was just nothing about it that screamed scam," she said.
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It was only after checking RingGo's official site that the penny dropped.
"I had a look on RingGo's official website, and there was a warning about QR codes, and that's when we realised it was a scam," she said.
RingGo has made clear that it does not use QR codes and has urged motorists never to attempt to pay for parking through them.
A spokesman for the company said: "If you suspect you have found a scam QR code on a local pay-and-display machine, please register it to the council operating in the area so it can be flagged with the local authorities and removed."
The firm also stressed that its mobile app provides a secure, encrypted payment service and warned drivers to exercise caution when entering card details outside of the app.
Chris Marsh, the car park's general manager, echoed the warning against using QR codes for payment.
"We would never recommend following a payment link via QR code due to the potential for this scam," he said.
Mr Marsh added that signage and ticket machines are inspected regularly and that no customer had previously reported being targeted by such a scam at the site.
