ARVADA, Colo. — FOX31 Denver viewers got a parking ticket outside their Arvada townhome in the middle of the night.

It immediately raised their suspicion that it might be a scam.

“What scares me is they came onto a private parking spot and they were looking at all the cars,” says Nathan Perez.

The strangers also left a $75 parking ticket on the car belonging to Perez’s wife, Yvonne Archibeque.

It cited her for expired tags at 1:34 a.m. Wednesday.

“I think it’s shady because it’s a P.O. Box where they want you to submit the payment to,” says Perez.

They called Arvada Police. “The police department said don’t pay the ticket, sounds like a scam,” says Perez.

And they called us to warn the public.

But we found Parking Authority LLC, which issued the ticket, was hired by the family’s HOA in Arvada’s Westdale neighborhood.

“Because they are private property they can enforce those,” says Tammy Hall, owner of Maximum Property Management.

Her company handle’s the HOA’s day-to-day business–and says using services like Parking Authority is a necessary tool to keep properties safe and free of blight.

“HOA’s have rules about parking and the majority do not let unlicensed cars park out there. You can’t have disabled vehicles, vehicles with flat tires, cars that are just stored and not moved,” she says.

One of the company’s signs in the neighborhood states illegally parked vehicles will be ticketed. But Perez says they weren’t parked illegally.

“I do have the tags but I haven’t put them on yet because of the weather,” he says.

Parking Authority did not return my phone call or email.

But the company has stated in the past that tickets with fees make people take corrective action–that people don’t take warnings as seriously.

The HOA says it will waive the $75 fee in Archibeque and Perez’s case.