- Scammers put fake QR stickers over real codes on parking meters, so your payment goes to them instead of the city. If there’s a sticker over the code, don’t scan it.
- QR Reader decodes every QR code in a photo or screenshot and shows what each one does: every redirect for links, the number for phone codes, the network and password for Wi-Fi.
- It doesn’t rate whether a code is safe. It shows you, and you decide.
- For marketers: put a short vanity URL in your QR code that redirects to your landing page with UTM tags, so you can track scans.
The parking meter scam I keep seeing
I’ve seen it here in Nashville. I’ve seen it in Los Angeles. I’ve seen it in pretty much every big city with paid public parking: a QR code sticker slapped right on top of the real one on the meter.
It’s a simple scam. You scan the code, you pay, and you feel good about it. But your money went to whoever printed that sticker, and your parking never got paid!
So I have a rule. If there’s a sticker over the code, I don’t trust it. Maybe it’s a legit update. Maybe it isn’t. I can’t tell just by looking, so I don’t scan it. Most meters let you pay by texting a number instead, and that’s what I do as long as the number wasn’t covered up too.
But that got me thinking. Why is it so hard to see what a QR code actually does before you open it?
The tool I wanted didn’t exist
Any smartphone can read QR codes. But I wanted to check them in my browser, too. I wanted to upload one photo, even a photo with several codes in it, and have every code decoded. Then I wanted to click each one, see what it really does, and decide for myself whether to visit it.
I looked around and didn’t find anything that worked that way. So I decided to build it.
Take one: it didn’t work
I actually tried this about two years ago, using AI to help me code it. It didn’t go well. The decoding libraries just weren’t up to it, and I couldn’t get the thing to work.
This time I came back to it and vibe coded it in Cursor using Grok 4.7. It came out exactly the way I wanted. Same idea, two years later, and the tools had finally caught up.
What it does
The result is QR Reader. Take a photo, upload one, or paste a screenshot. Every QR code in the picture gets decoded, and each one gets a plain description of what it does.
If it’s a link, you see the full chain of redirects it goes through before it lands. If it’s a phone number, you see the number. If it’s a Wi-Fi code, you see the network and the password before you join. And there are a few other code types it can describe as well, see if you can find one it can’t detect.
One thing I want to be clear about: QR Reader doesn’t tell you whether a code is safe. It shows you what the code does, and the judgment call is still yours.
A tip for marketers
This part is the reason I find QR codes so useful for our clients at Love and Science.
We have clients use a simple vanity URL for QR codes, something short so the QR code stays simple and makes it easier to read even if it’s tiny, like example.com/spring2027. That goes in the QR code, but behind the scenes, that simple URL redirects to the landing page with UTM tags added to it.
So when someone scans the code, the visit gets tagged as coming from a QR code. That way you can actually tell whether your QR codes are working, instead of guessing.
If you want to see that in action, see the example codes in the QR Reader. You’ll see every hop in the redirect chain, UTM tags and all.
Try it
QR Reader started as a fun little tool for me. But if it saves even one person from paying a scammer for parking, I’ll take it.
Next time you see a code on a parking meter, a letter, a restaurant table, or a flyer, get it checked so you don’t get wrecked: qr.loveandscience.com.
