ATLANTA — Atlanta police are warning drivers to carefully review any parking tickets they receive to make sure they’re real, especially if they believe they were legally parked on a city street.
Some motorists have received fake parking tickets that encourage them to send payment, but those payments aren’t going to the city of Atlanta.
Most parking enforcement in the city of Atlanta is managed by a company called ATLPlus.
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If you have a question about whether or not a ticket you received is real, you can call ATLPlus at 888-266-1360.
If you suspect you have received a fake ticket, police ask you to call 311 or 911 to file a police report.
Atlanta police also issue parking citations, and those look different from ones issued by ATLPlus.
Payments for parking citations issued by the Atlanta Police Department are handled by the Atlanta Municipal Court.
Ashton Merriweather got one of the fake tickets when she parked her car near Piedmont Park.
“It was really odd that all of the tickets had the same exact time on it, which was 2:41 pm, which I thought was odd,” Merriweather said.
The fake ticket Merriweather received had a QR code on it that led to a PayPal account and the crook’s email.
“That was when the flag was raised as far as the ticket and also it had like a Gmail at the top of the ticket, which I thought was odd as well,” Merriweather said.
Channel 2 consumer adviser Clark Howard said there’s a way to verify whether or not a parking ticket you received is legitimate.
“Any ticket you get could be fake,” Clark said. “So you do not scan the QR code. You go to the website for the jurisdiction you’re in and you see, is that a valid ticket number?”
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