Auckland Transport is telling drivers not to scan any QR code they find on one of its parking machines, after staff peeled a small number of fake stickers off meters in the city centre.
The warning, issued on Tuesday, makes Auckland the third main centre caught by the same trick in eight weeks. Christchurch found the stickers in July. Wellington pulled about a dozen off its meters in the first days of September. In every case the sticker is placed over the part of the machine that tells you how to pay, and the code leads to a website that looks like a parking payment page and asks for card details.
“Recently our parking teams have been made aware of a handful of scam QR code stickers that have been placed on AT parking meters in the Auckland city centre,” Auckland Transport’s head of transport and parking compliance Rick Bidgood said in a statement.
“AT does not use QR codes on any of our parking meters or machines, so we are warning Aucklanders not to scan any QR codes on AT machines and to please report these stickers to us if they spot them,” he said. “Our parking officers on the beat are also keeping an eye out for these dodgy QR code stickers so they can remove them and help keep Aucklanders safe from scams.”
Bidgood said the legitimate ways to pay were unchanged. “It’s safe and easy to pay for parking using the AT Park app or by using a credit or debit card at the nearest parking meter,” he said. “AT never uses QR codes on parking machines or for parking payments, so our message to Aucklanders is clear – skip the QR codes to stay safe.”
The pattern has been consistent since the stickers first appeared. In Christchurch in July, 1News reported that scammers had scribbled over meter screens with permanent marker so the machines could not be read, which pushed drivers towards the sticker as the only apparent way to pay. The codes turned up on council machines and privately owned ones.
Christchurch City Council head of transport Stephen Wright said the council was taking the matter “very seriously”. “The stickers at these sites were immediately removed and monitoring and surveillance from the Parking Compliance team has been increased – we’ll be out checking meters daily,” he said. “However, residents should be mindful that any stickers like this are not legitimate. The council would never prompt payment through QR codes and the correct payment method for council-owned parking sites is always provided on the parking meters themselves.”
Wellington was next. RNZ reported on 3 September that city council parking staff had removed roughly a dozen fake stickers over a couple of days. Scanning one took the driver to a site that asked for the length of stay and the registration plate before moving on to credit card details, which is the same sequence a real parking payment would follow and part of why it works.
Wellington District Police posted a warning after receiving complaints. “They might look legitimate but aren’t and are scamming people parking on the roads through their payment system,” police said. “Council staff are pulling down these stickers when they see them, but we would appreciate information from the public on where they’ve been placed.”
Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Bolton of the Auckland City Financial Crime Unit said drivers should be careful about where they hand over card numbers. “Pay close attention when you’re paying for parking. If you are scanning one of these dodgy QR codes, there’s a high chance the website you’re being directed to is being run by an offshore scam centre,” he said. “From there, the scammers will use your credit card details to wreak havoc and attempt to fraudulently use your money.”
Anyone who has already entered their details on one of the fake sites should ring their bank straight away. “The sooner you act, the less chance scammers have to do any damage,” Bolton said. Interference with parking machines can be reported to police on 105.
There is one wrinkle worth knowing, because the simple version of the advice does not hold everywhere. Councils and Auckland Transport do not use QR codes for parking payments at all, so on their machines a code is always fake. Private operators are different. Wilson Parking runs a web payment product called ParkMate Guest, and the company’s own website says each participating car park has a unique QR code that takes drivers to a webpage where they select a time and pay. So the useful test is not whether a QR code exists but whose machine it is sitting on, and whether the sticker looks like it belongs there or has been slapped over something else.
The National Cyber Security Centre used the Christchurch case as its worked example when it wrote about fraudulent codes in its quarter two cyber security insights for 2026. Its advice is to look at the address bar before typing anything. “Check the web address of the page displayed after scanning a QR code. If it looks suspicious or unusual, do not interact with it or enter any of your details,” the agency said. It also warns people to be careful of codes “that appear unexpectedly or look to have been recently attached or placed over existing codes”.
The appeal for the people behind it is that the whole scheme costs about as much as a sheet of printer labels. Netsafe’s State of Scams in New Zealand report, published in November last year with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, surveyed 1,000 adults and found 72 per cent had struck a scam in the previous year and close to a quarter had lost money, at an average loss of $3,352. The report put total national losses at around $3 billion, or close to 0.75 per cent of GDP, and found card payments were the most common way scammers collected the money. More than two in five people who lost money got none of it back.
No losses from the Auckland stickers have been made public so far. Auckland Transport says only a handful were found, and parking officers are checking machines as they work.
Have you come across one of these stickers on a parking meter in your town? Tell us where in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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