Austin city warns of scam website impersonating official pay-to-park platform
Published: Thu, 01/11/24
Austin city warns of scam website impersonating official pay-to-park platform
The City of Austin is warning people to be careful of a website impersonating its pay-to-park platform online.
(Photo: Andrew Freeman for CBS Austin)
CBS Austin
by Andrew Freeman
AUSTIN, Texas — The City of Austin is warning people to be careful of a website impersonating its pay-to-park platform online.
The site is tricking users into handing over their credit card information.
City of Austin's Parking Enterprise Manager Jacob Culberson says it's frustrating to see scams like this pop up in Austin, with other corporations and cities as popular targets too.
"So this is a scam that is far-reaching," Culberson said. "This has occurred with big brand names, like PayPal, and Amazon. There are potential scammers who are essentially pretending to be large brand names in trying to gain people's information."
Culberson says he knows of at least three users who tried accessing the Park A.T.X. website online, only to enter their credit card information without initiating a parking session. That's when the city knew something was up.
"When we investigated this issue, we discovered that a sponsored website on Google's ad space appeared at the top of the Google search results," Culberson said.
He says the city has reached out to Google to correct this scam, but in the meantime, those looking to park downtown need to double-check the URL.
"It's important that, you know, people get the app from those official sources and not from some third party or another app that's just advertising," Culberson said.
However, he says the best way to protect yourself is to deal directly with the official Park A.T.X. app, which can be downloaded for free in both the iOS and Android app stores.
"The integrity of our official Park ATX app is not compromised, this is another site pretending to be our official app," Culberson said.
And if you believe you've been a victim of this scam, Culberson says you should act quickly."We advise people to immediately contact their credit card or debit card companies to discuss their options with them," Culberson said.