Drivers are being warned of a “convincing” new scam text message which accuses motorists of owing money through unpaid parking fines.

Consumer watchdog Which? is alerting drivers in the UK to the scam, which takes victims to a copycat government website.

The website aims to earn your trust by mimicking government bodies and encouraging you to enter details to pay the fine.

The initial text, from a random number, tells the victim that “an unpaid parking fine was found on your vehicle” and warns that they must “pay immediately”.

Also included in the message is a link to the copycat website.

Experts at Which? said: “The dodgy phishing website is a very convincing copy of the official government website, complete with accurate logos, branding and font.

“It links to other pages on the website, such as ‘parking fines and penalty charge notices, ‘challenge a parking fine’ and ‘parking and public transport’ actually leads to the official government website pages on these topics.

“We wrote random characters into the ‘vehicle registration’ box and each time where given a bogus PCN (penalty charge) number and told we owed a £25 fine.

“The location listed for the fine was also the area we were located in, meaning that the page could be using the user’s IP address to know where they’re located to make the scam more convincing.

“After this page, you’re asked for more personal and payment data including your name, email, phone number and home address to pay the fine.

“The only sign indicating that this website was fraudulent was the URL. All official government pages start with gov.uk.”

Which? warn anyone receiving an unexpected text message not to click on any links or follow any instructions to log in to accounts.

If you are worried that you have clicked a scammers link, you should check the URL to see if it is the same as you were expecting.

You can report scam websites to the National Cyber Security Centre by forwarding texts to 7726, or you can report the scam to Action Fraud.