It's bad enough finding a parking ticket on your windshield, but to pay it and then find out it's fake is even worse.
But that's what happened in Parry Sound.
“That looks totally official to me, it's got a barcode,” says Patti Reed.
Everything about the ticket seems legitimate, she says, until she looks at the amount.
“I would wonder if there's something with that because it's $195 and I've never seen a ticket that high,” she says.
It's a hefty fine, and it's also a fraud.
“It's quite realistic and I can totally understand how someone could be fooled by this scam. We don't see this very often here in town and we alerted the public and the OPP right away,” says Dave Thompson with the Town of Parry Sound.
Thompson says someone found a ticket tucked on the windshield of their Porsche. Initially, that person brought it into the town office because they were upset by the amount, until they found out the ticket is fake.
“A town of parry sound ticket is similar to other municipalities,” says Thompson. “It is handwritten by the officers and has a signature at the bottom.”
Another red-flag – the ticket was issued to a car in a parking lot at the foot of a popular fitness trail where parking has always been free.
A concern for police, however, is there are a lot of visitors who may not know the rules or may not be able to come back to town to question a ticket.
“There are a lot of seasonal residents and they may not be able to come back to the municipality and verify if this is real,” says OPP Const. Zenobie Loach.
She says payment instructions on the back of the ticket listed an address in toronto, and the OPP is working with Toronto police to track down anyone involved. She says it's a sophisticated scam that could dupe anyone, especially out-of-towners.
Given how legitimate these tickets look, police say it's likely many more were handed out and possibly some people paid the fines. Police are asking anyone with information or anyone who may have received a ticket to come forward.
