Perth Car Parks Hit by QR Code Scammers Again; Residents Now Too Scared to Scan Anything, Including Shopping
Tesco tills 'grind to a halt' as shoppers refuse to let barcodes near their phones.
A Perth city centre car park, where the only thing worth scanning is the horizon. Photo: Russel Wills, “The South Inch, Perth - geograph.org.uk - 4820707”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
PERTH — Following the discovery of fake QR code stickers on parking ticket machines at the South Inch, South Street and several other Perth car parks, residents have become so wary of codes that some are refusing to scan anything at all.
“I’m not trusting a barcode again,” said a woman at a supermarket till, covering her shopping with her coat. “That’s how they get you. First it’s parking. Next it’s your pasta.”
The council has reminded drivers that the official parking app does not use QR codes and that they can pay with coins or a card. Many residents have responded by paying with coins, slowly, one at a time, while staring at the machine “so it knows we’re watching.”
One Craigie man has started carrying a magnifying glass to check every machine for stickers. “I found one,” he said proudly. “It was a sticker of a cat. I reported it anyway.”
The real story: Real: scam QR stickers removed from several Perth city car park machines; RingGo does not use QR codes (STV / LDRS, Oct 2026)
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