Kent Police and Thanet council have issued warnings about a parking ticket scam.
There have been several reports of people receiving texts, purportedly from Thanet council, to say they have to pay a parking charge within 14 days and failure to pay could result in prosecution. A link is then given to find more ‘information.’
However, the texts are a scam.
A message from Kent Police’s Prevent and Protect Team says: “We have had several reports of the parking fine, commonly known as a penalty charge notice, being received via text message, it is a SCAM.
“Do not click on the link, as it is designed to take you to a realistic looking website under the control of the criminals, where they will look to steal your personal and financial data.
“If you are not sure if a text message is genuine, then always apply our Scam Awareness message ABC, which is never Assume or Believe a message is genuine but always Confirm. In other words, contact the sender by using a trusted phone number.
“You can report Scam text messages by forwarding to 7726.
“If you think that you may have been a victim of this or any other type of scam, then contact your Bank immediately, which you can do by calling 159 and report it to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk or call 0300 123 2040.”
Thanet council has also posted a message to its facebook page to warn residents of the scam.
TDC says: “We never send text messages with a link asking people to pay their parking fines, officially known as Penalty Charge Notices or PCNs.
“This is a scam and it has been reported to the police.”
Thank you for bringing this current scam to all. Maybe tdc (who have all our contact details and a lot more personal information) Could have done more..To alert us.
What about giving the current so called rough sleepers in car park more help.
Please can i say, there is also a fraud idea when returning motorists to their vehicle find there is the usual yellow plastic envelope attached to windscreen that contains a pcn notice and how to pay it. Check b4 payment.
Has tdc recruited more operatives for parking and other enforcement operatives for pspo. This is not a wfh job.
What does our new Mp think ?
TDC will always send you a bill through the post, in an official envelope with a reply envelope if they want money from you.
I got one – Indian scammers in Mumbai riding on the back of a mail order shoe company called StockX for the fake Gov.UK link where they scam your details from that link and take your money.
Lots of young Indians get mixed up with scam call centres most not even knowing they are working for a scam company bouncing payments from bank to bank all over the world trying to clean it up and make it untraceable.
India has a major problem with scam call centres and some are even protected by corrupt police.
StockX isn’t a scam site, at all. They’re a legit sneaker re-selling website used globally by thousands of people per day. I’ve bought around forty pairs off there over the years with zero issues.
Why hasn’t this scam website been taken down by the authorities yet? It’s happening with other Councils as well as Thanet.
because its hosted outside of the uk, for starters. So UK LEO have no jurisdiction.
Why must the UK always have to be the leaders though? Why cant authorities in the countries that have these scam call centres take them down, or are the authorities all corrupt too? The UK shouldn’t do business with corrupt countries that allow call centres to pop up scamming the world.