Officers patrolling car parks as QR code scams rise

Fake QR codes have appeared in multiple car parks around Cheltenham

Extra patrols in car parks are taking place daily amid a rise of people falling victim to QR code scams, a council has said.

Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) officers are inspecting the town's payment machines to remove the QR code stickers, following multiple reports of scammers attempting to trick residents into making payments.

CBC stressed none of its parking machines used QR codes for payment.

Action Fraud said it had received 784 reports of various scams involving QR codes between April 2024 and April 2025 across the UK, with more than £3.5m lost.

Katherine Hart, lead officer for scams at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, said there had been a huge increase in parking scams involving QR codes across England.

There had been a huge increase in parking scams involving QR codes across England

She said: "What people don't realise is you are open to secondary scamming, so make sure to continue to check your bank accounts."

Ms Hart added scams "are getting harder to spot" but people should "make sure to continue to report them".

Henry Soulsby Bentham and Claire Soulsby both avoid using QR codes in car parks

Henry Soulsby Bentham, a volunteer at Cheltenham Literature Festival, said: "If it's anything to do with my phone, if I'm not talking to a person, I don't trust it.

"If there's a QR code, I'm not scanning it."

Claire Soulsby said she usually pays for parking via card and avoids QR codes.

"You just don't want to trust it when you're in a car park because you don't know where you're going to end up going or what's going to end up getting downloaded to your phone," she said.

A CBC spokesperson urged the public to be vigilant.

"Fake QR codes can be quickly identified - if you know what to look for," they said.

"Giveaways include codes being stuck onto payment meters without any branding or supporting information."