Beware the QR code: How a new scam is costing consumers £10,000 per day
What is quishing? New scam collected more than £3.5m last year
- Quishing is a new scam combining QR codes and phishing, used by fraudsters to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware.
- Action Fraud reported 784 quishing incidents between April 2024 and April 2025, leading to nearly £3.5 million in losses, with concerns that this figure is an underestimate.
- Car parks are the most common location for quishing scams, with fraudsters placing fake QR code stickers on payment machines.
- Victims can suffer severe consequences, including identity theft, significant financial fraud, and additional penalties like parking fines.
- To protect against quishing, individuals should pause before scanning, use their phone's built-in QR scanner, be wary of tampered public QR codes, and always verify URLs before entering personal details.