This screenshot shows the fraudulent site am5.com impersonating Austin's Park ATX app.
Austin Transportation and Public Works Department
Mobile parking scam targets Austin’s official parking app
Published: Tue, 01/16/24
Mobile parking scam targets Austin’s official parking app
This screenshot shows the fraudulent site am5.com impersonating Austin's Park ATX app.
Austin Transportation and Public Works Department
MYSA
By Emily Hernandez
Multiple people have fallen victim to a new parking scam in Austin. A sponsored website with the address am5.com has been impersonating Park ATX, Austin’s official paid parking mobile app, since Friday, January 5.
Three users reported that after they entered credit card information on the fake site, their cards were not charged and there was no way to start a parking session, Jacob Culberson, acting enterprise parking manager for the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department, said.
Culberson said when the reports came within a 24-hour period, the city started investigating the issue with Passport, the Park ATX app service host, and Google, where the fraudulent site appears as the first search result on mobile as a sponsored post.
“The unfortunate issue is that this was a verified service with Google Ad services, so we're just waiting on them to review and investigate the claim as well,” Culberson said.
Culberson said the fake website appears to be offering some legitimate services, which may prolong Google’s investigation and potential takedown of the ad for Park ATX.
“I was researching and looking at Houston's park system, ParkHouston, and it looks like am5.com was also trying to be a landing page for ParkMobile's app to download for Houston, as well as Sacramento, California,” Culberson said. “We're definitely not the only parking industry to be targeted for this kind of potential scam.”
The best way to avoid a website stealing credit card information is to use the city’s official website for downloading the Park ATX app, using parkatxapp.com to download the app, scanning the QR code on the Park ATX signs, or looking it up directly on your phone’s app store, Culberson said.
“We also have the text-to-pay, which is out on the signs as well,” Culberson said. “Everybody needs to stick to the signs.”
To enable text-to-pay, you can text “parking” to 30843 to pay and start a parking session through text messaging, he said.