Sacramento drivers got a crash course in parking scam awareness recently, and the tuition was nearly several hundred dollars. Dashawn Fontane walked up to his vehicle in downtown Sacramento to find what looked like a boot clamped to his wheel, paired with an official-looking city parking notice. It had all the hallmarks of a legitimate enforcement action, which is precisely the point.
Fontane did what most people would do: he called the number on the notice. What followed was a text message campaign straight out of a pressure-sale playbook, complete with escalating towing fees, daily storage charges piling up by the hour, and the particularly creative threat that a tracking device had already been placed on his vehicle. “I was ready to pay right then,” Fontane said. That willingness to pay on the spot is exactly what made him a good target.
The scam works because it leans on something real. Sacramento has a vehicle booting program in the pipeline, set to resume July 1, under which drivers carrying five or more outstanding parking citations become eligible to have their wheels immobilized. The city has been distributing warning notices ahead of that date to give residents a heads-up. Scammers apparently read the room, grabbed their own fake hardware, and started operating in the gap between warning and enforcement…