USD 21,17
Popular
A new wave of fraudulent SMS messages is spreading across Czechia, informing drivers that they allegedly have an unpaid parking bill and urging them to settle it online immediately. According to the Police Presidium, the scammers are using this trick to steal bank card details.
"Unfortunately, we have already encountered these SMS messages about unpaid parking. The fraudsters are trying to obtain payment card details. Let us repeat once again: no institution sends SMS messages demanding urgent payment of a fine or debt," said police spokesman Jakub Vinčálek.
The message arrives from a sender named "InfoSMS" and reads: "Your vehicle has an unpaid parking fee registered against it. Please check and pay online." Attached to the message is a link that closely resembles the EasyPark app, used by thousands of drivers across the country. However, instead of the official domains easypark.cz or easypark.com, the link leads to fake addresses such as easyepark.cc or easyfpark.vu/cz.
The fake page almost perfectly replicates the original website — same logo, same colour scheme, even the same FAQ section. The scam can be exposed with a simple test: the site asks users to enter their car's license plate number, and even if a completely made-up number is entered, the system "finds" a non-existent debt and immediately issues a bill for 20 CZK.
The tiny sum is no accident — it's small enough that many people simply pay without questioning it. Victims are then asked to enter their card number, expiry date, CVV code, and even a phone number — and that's exactly how the data ends up in the hands of scammers, who can later use it for unauthorised transactions or follow-up scams, such as calls from "fake bank employees."
The domain easypark.vu has already been flagged by the security service Gridinsoft as a phishing site with an extremely low trust rating, designed to steal login credentials and payment information.
Police advise the public to ignore any suspicious SMS messages and delete them immediately, always double-check a website's address before clicking a link, never enter card details on third-party sites, and, if in doubt, check the status of any payments directly through the official app or website of the service in question. Anyone who has already entered their card details should contact their bank immediately, block the card, and report the incident to the police.
Source: novinky.cz
