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Standing in the car park of a hospital I had never been to before, ahead of my appointment for an intrusive scan, I was on edge, flustered and – as it would transpire – vulnerable.
But as I tried to fathom how to pay for the parking, fear about the scan was giving way to panic that I might miss my appointment.
Having gathered that I needed an app, I quickly Googled the name of the car parking firm, Apcoa Connect, that was listed on the car park sign.
I clicked on what I thought was the right site. 'Eureka! That was easy,' I thought, as I typed in my name, email, phone number and address as quickly as my fingers would allow. When the instruction came to use Apple Pay – via a bank card stored on my phone – I clicked the button.
But a second later a stab of fear went through me. 'Hang on,' I thought. 'Why didn't the app ask where I'm parked?'
Almost simultaneously, my phone beeped with a message from my bank warning of a suspicious transaction on my account.
And just like that, I became one of a growing number of people being scammed in hospital car parks.
The scams may vary, but the result is the same: swindling people, many of whom will be at their lowest ebb, out of their money.
I was lucky that my bank realised the payment was suspicious and acted so quickly. I cancelled the card, but that didn't stop the 'company' I signed up to repeatedly trying to charge me £40.56, which I later discovered was for a gaming service that I'd been automatically signed up to.
Other drivers have been left seriously out of pocket. Emma Bovey lost almost £150 after visiting Totnes Hospital car park in Devon last November. She had scanned a QR code to pay for parking, not realising that criminals had stuck a fake QR code over the genuine one – an increasingly popular scam known as 'quishing'.
When people 'scan the malicious QR code with a smartphone, this will then direct them to a fraudulent website designed to steal their personal or financial information', explains Oliver Chan, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Birmingham. 'The stolen information is often used to commit fraud.'
The scammers drained Emma's account of £146.79 and tried to take a further £849 but failed, Emma told the BBC, as 'thankfully I didn't have that much in my account'. The hospital said the fake QR code had been removed after the incident and the car park was being 'closely monitored'.
Many other hospital car parks have been targeted in this way. According to Freedom of Information (FOI) data, at least 20 NHS hospital car parks have been hit by quishing scams in the year to April 2025. However, the real figure may be higher as many are run by private companies. Also, private hospitals aren't covered by FOI rules, so the number of those affected is unknown.
Quishing is becoming so widespread that in June, Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for victims of fraud, issued a warning to people to 'check QR codes to see if they are malicious, or have been tampered with, before scanning them online or in public spaces'. Iain Swaine, a fraud strategist at Outseer, a company that provides fraud prevention solutions for banks, says: 'If you look closely a fake QR code will look like a sticker, that has been stuck over something else or tampered with.'
Between April 2024 and April 2025, Action Fraud received reports of £3.5 million lost through quishing scams – and car parks accounted for most of them.
Hospital car parks are the perfect target for the crime, says Oliver Chan, as many 'are unattended or under-monitored, especially during night time', making it 'easier for people to place fake QR codes and tamper with payment machines'.
But there's another darker reason that criminals home in on hospital car parks.
'There is an element of psychology to scamming – and the teams behind it know that scams work best when people are at their lowest point,' says Iain Swaine.
'People are often distracted at hospital car parks. They may have a sick child or spouse, or they may be unwell themselves or a bit older and not as cautious as they might usually be,' he explains.
'The scammer sees that as a window of opportunity. These aren't nice people.'
That is evident from their tactics.
One day last December, a man in his 80s was scammed out of £1,000 after being approached in the car park of Royal Stoke University Hospital by someone with a card-reader who told him to pay using the handheld machine. The man handed over his card which the 'parking attendant' said didn't work and then disappeared with it. The four-figure sum left the elderly man's account later that day.
The same day another man in his 70s was scammed in a similar way at County Hospital in Stafford – just 16 miles away.
Iain Swaine says the crooks know their time to profit is limited.
'With quishing, they whack the sticker on overnight and then try to get the first 5,000 people before it gets blocked – then they move on to the next site.'
Or they swap to a different scam – such as sending people texts or WhatsApp messages demanding penalty payments for a parking offence in a hospital car park. The message also includes a fake payment link.
Criminals obtain stolen personal data on the dark web – and will often use it to target people of a certain age.
'Older people are more likely to have visited a hospital and will then think: "Maybe I did do that,"' says Iain Swaine. In June, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust issued a warning after receiving 'several reports' of the scam, with people getting messages from a mobile number with the 'location of the hospital site at the top'.
Yet another tactic, says Oliver Chan, involves card skimming – using a fake strip inserted into the machine 'to clone the card's magnetic strip to steal the card information'.
The scam I fell for, according to Iain Swaine, is run by gangs who pay to have adverts for their site placed at the top of Google search. 'People tend to just click on what comes up first in their search and start giving their details,' he says.
In other words, someone had paid for an advert to resemble the name of the car parking app I was Googling – and in my flustered state I clicked on it rather than the genuine app.
But they weren't just out to steal the parking fee. Within minutes, I received an email from the company saying I'd signed up to an 'all-in-one digital media service' offering unlimited access to a 'huge catalogue of games'. This meant they would attempt to take £40.56 from my account every month.
Iain Swaine says offering a 'service' gives them an 'air of legitimacy'.
'Some people may not notice what they have done and then will keep getting regular payments taken from their account.'
He says I was lucky that my bank noticed it was an unusual transaction.
For me, the whole affair was made worse when I got into the hospital and realised that, as a patient, all I needed to do was register my car number plate with reception – I didn't need to pay for parking at all. But a lesson learned – think before you pay.
Five vital checks to make
1. Use only authorised parking apps (e.g. RingGo, PayByPhone, JustPark) that you download from official app stores (not via links from text messages or emails), says Oliver Chan, an associate professor of criminology.
2. Check whether a QR code looks like a sticker over signs or machines, and not part of the official sign.
3. If you are paying via a machine, check for signs of tampering (e.g. loose card readers, keypads that feel weird).
4. Never respond to a text about a penalty notice or parking offence. These will only come through the post or be presented as a ticket left on the car, advises the British Parking Association. It will also have exact details of your car and registration number – and when and where the offence happened; a scam notice will not.
5. If you suspect you’ve been scammed, close the browser or delete the app instantly to limit criminals’ access to your details, says security expert Iain Swaine. ‘Report the scam to your bank and/or Action Fraud immediately,’ adds Oliver Chan.