EnergyVision, an energy company best known as a supplier of solar panels and charging stations, has temporarily disabled ad hoc payments via QR codes at public charging points after fraudulent QR stickers were applied. The company, in which entrepreneur Marc Coucke has also invested, reported this via social media.
“Unfortunately, these fraudsters are active at charging points of multiple providers throughout the country,” it said. “We recommend that you only use your charging card for a 100 percent secure payment. Have you recently paid via a QR code? Contact your bank.”
About a hundred people are said to have fallen victim to the fraud. They each lost 300 euros, Maarten Michielssens, the CEO of EnergyVision, told Het Laatste Nieuws. “Fortunately, only 5 percent of our customers pay via those codes, most of them use charging cards.” EnergyVision has filed a complaint.
The QR codes were pasted on the charging stations at about twenty locations. Anyone who scanned it ended up on a web page to pay. After payment, an error message appeared, but the fraudsters withdrew 300 euros from the account. “You were then redirected to the correct page where you could pay again, which of course was successful. This meant you could still load and it was not immediately noticeable that you had been robbed,” Michielssens added.