Mr Haworth, a photographer from Garforth, near Leeds, told BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme: “You have to be very careful, very careful. This is a pretty clever scam – I guess I’m pretty savvy with IT and scams. so.”

He scanned the code after being told by another car park user that the pay and display machine did not accept coin payments.

Wakefield Council said it had recently replaced signage in its car parks after becoming aware of the prevalence of parking scams, and when Mr Haworth returned to the site at Carlton Lanes, legitimate mobile phone payment information was displayed instead .

Action Fraud told you and yours that so far this year it has received 2,600 reports mentioning the word ‘parking’ – double the figures recorded daily since 2022.

Increased awareness of the methods used by scammers is believed to be one of the reasons why more reports have been made. Incidents have been reported from across the country, from Bournemouth to Aberdeen.

Chartered Trading Standards Institute spokeswoman Katherine Hart said QR code scams, such as the one Mr Haworth fell victim to, were among the most common.

“It is an emerging trend. It is growing and we see it everywhere now.

“The common factor is that they are trying to collect data to exploit you financially at some point.”