A Hobsons Bay councillor is warning people about bogus parking fines being emailed to unsuspecting recipients after receiving one herself.
Cr Colleen Gates last week received a fake infringement notice for $70.14, emailed to her work address.
“City Council” cited the offence as parking “longer than indicated” without specifying a location, according to the email.
“It just came into my email inbox out of nowhere,” Cr Gates said. “I looked at it and I thought, ‘Where would I have got a parking fine?’
“And then I was like, ‘I don’t get parking fines’.”
Cr Gates reminded people that councils could not link a person’s car to their email address.
She urged people to delete any such emails and not click on any links in case of malware.
The forgery contained a number of errors, making it easier to detect.
“You could see that there’s some flaws in it because it doesn’t name the council, and since when would you get a parking fine on May 30 and then it tells you to pay by June 5,” Cr Gates said.
“Then, when they have referred to the legislation, the legislation was written with some capital letters and some small letters.”
Ironically, the fake fine arrived on the back of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scams Awareness Week.
People can find out how to protect themselves and report scams via the ACCC’s Scamwatch service.
