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Dorsten: Fake QR Codes on Almost All Parking Machines in the City Centre

5 min read

Fraudsters covered almost all parking ticket machines in Dorsten’s city centre with fake EasyPark stickers. The phishing site easy-parked.com harvested credit card data. The city has responded – here is what you need to know.

Almost all parking machines in the city centre affected

In mid-June 2026, the city of Dorsten and its residents raised the alarm: almost all parking ticket machines in Dorsten’s city centre had been covered with fake QR code stickers. The stickers deceptively imitated the design of the well-known parking provider EasyPark – but anyone who scanned the code did not end up in the official app, but on the phishing site easy-parked.com.

The fraudsters’ goal: credit card data. The fake site asked parkers to enter their card details for the alleged parking fee. The city of Dorsten removed the stickers immediately and announced close inspections of all machines.

Warning: the domain easy-parked.com has nothing to do with the real provider EasyPark (easypark.com). Check the URL before every payment – the smallest deviations such as hyphens or different endings are a red flag.

How the scam works

  1. Fraudsters cover the genuine QR code on the parking machine with a deceptively real sticker in EasyPark design.
  2. The scan leads to easy-parked.com – a copy of the real payment page.
  3. There, credit card details are requested for the alleged parking fee.
  4. With the captured data, the perpetrators empty accounts or sell the data on.

How to protect yourself

  • • Check whether the QR code is a sticker – run your finger over the surface.
  • • Use the provider’s official app from the app store instead of QR codes on the machine.
  • • Check the URL carefully before entering payment details.
  • • Scan QR codes with QRTrust first – its phishing detection warns you about fake payment pages.
  • • Already entered your details? Block your card immediately and report it to the police.

All quishing incidents at a glance

The Dorsten case is part of a nationwide wave. On our interactive quishing map, we document all known QR code fraud cases in Germany.

View the quishing map →

Source

*About QRTrust: QRTrust is Germany’s first QR code security platform, developed in Dortmund. With AI-powered real-time detection, QRTrust protects citizens and businesses from quishing attacks. 100% GDPR compliant, hosted in Germany.*

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