{"id":637152,"date":"2026-04-29T21:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T21:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637152\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T21:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T21:28:13","slug":"bikeshare-toronto-warns-riders-of-qr-code-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637152\/","title":{"rendered":"BikeShare Toronto warns riders of QR code scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>As the weather gets warmer, <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/bike-share-toronto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bike Share Toronto<\/a> riders are being warned to stay vigilant as fraudulent QR codes are being placed on some of its bikes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>In a social media post, the program said scammers have been placing fake <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/qr-code\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">QR code<\/a> stickers over official ones, redirecting users to malicious websites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve become aware of fraudulent QR codes being placed over the official QR codes on some of our bikes,\u201d they said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Although the program uses the QR codes for unlocking bikes, it does not accept any forms of payment through the QR codes.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you'll never miss the day's top stories.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you&#8217;ll never miss the day&#8217;s top stories.<\/p>\n<p>BikeShare said they are urging all riders to unlock bikes only using its official app and in-app scanner.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/toronto-police-service\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Police Service<\/a> told Global News it is not aware of any reports linked to bike share bikes, but says it has seen similar scams involving parking meters in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>At least three recent cases involved fake QR codes placed on parking meters.<\/p>\n<p>Victims believed they were paying for parking, but were instead charged nearly $2,000, Toronto police said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Canada<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Investigators warn that the same tactic could be used in other public spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Police advise people to inspect QR codes for signs of tampering, avoid scanning codes in public places when possible and never enter payment information unless the source is trusted.<\/p>\n<p>They also recommend using official apps or websites instead of scanning QR codes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you wouldn\u2019t click it, don\u2019t scan it,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n<p>BikeShare Toronto is asking users to report any suspicious QR codes to customer service.<\/p>\n<p>Since the start of 2026, bike share has added 25 new stations and three station expansions, bringing 463 new docking points and nearly 500 new places to park and pick up bikes.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size As the weather gets warmer, Bike Share Toronto riders are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[238082,49,48,20403,39703,3302],"class_list":["post-637152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-bike-share-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fraud","tag-qr-code","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}