As visitors flock to Riverside for the annual Festival of Lights, city officials are warning people to be on the lookout for fake QR codes posted by scammers at parking pay stations.
Fraudulent QR codes direct people to websites that ask for credit or debit card information with the apparent goal of stealing financial data.
“The fraudsters were putting different QR code details over the existing ones, which would direct them to a similar-looking site” to the city’s parking portal, said Ryan Railsback, public information officer for the police department.
The city has tried to find and remove fake QR codes, “but we want the public to be aware of them,” Railsback said. He recommended going directly to the city’s parking site https://parkatriverside.com/ instead of scanning the city’s QR code, be careful.
For decades, attending the Festival of Lights held at the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa has been a holiday ritual for many locals and out-of-town visitors, attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators each year.
