Metro police issue warning about fake parking tickets in Midtown Hills area
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — There’s nothing worse than receiving a parking ticket, until you find out it was fake.
The Metro Nashville Police Department said phony parking tickets have popped up in the Midtown Hills area, adding that two such tickets were discovered on Saturday, April 13 and Tuesday, April 16 on 21st Avenue and Patterson Street, claiming a fine must be paid for parking illegally.
The fake tickets instruct the victims to send money through the Square payment app or a fraudulent website called metronashvilleparking.com, saying the fine is $25 if paid within three days and $50 if paid after three days.
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At this time, authorities don’t know if an organized group of people is committing the scam. The MNPD Fraud Unit said it hasn’t worked a crime like this before.
Metro Councilmember at Large Quin Evans-Segall posted the warning on her Facebook, encouraging everyone to stay alert and report any suspicious tickets. She said she believes thieves are capitalizing on the fairly new electronic parking system Nashville rolled out.
“It is a pretty new system in Nashville that we’re able to pay electronically, and it’s frankly pretty new that we’re doing enforcement on the scale that we’re doing,” Evans-Segall said.
According to officials, MNPD and Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT) parking tickets look the same. Either of those fines will only be paid online via the Davidson County Circuit Court Clerk’s Traffic Violation Bureau website.
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If you may have been a victim of this parking ticket scam, or if you spot one of the phony tickets, you are asked to call 615-862-8600 and report it to a Fraud Unit detective.
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