{"id":621100,"date":"2025-12-03T10:01:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=621100"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:02:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:02:01","slug":"traffic-fine-scam-warning-for-south-african-motorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/motoring\/621100-traffic-fine-scam-warning-for-south-african-motorists.html","title":{"rendered":"Traffic fine scam warning for South African motorists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) has noted an increase in after-hours scams targeting motorists to pay fake traffic fines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency warned the public about the increase in a series of posts on X, advising motorists to disregard any after-hours traffic fine notifications and to verify concerns with it during office hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Important reminder: RTIA has noticed an increase in after working hours scam emails regarding traffic fines,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“RTIA urges you to ignore these messages and confirm any concerns with us during working hours.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RTIA describes itself as the home of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, which is currently in effect in Johannesburg and Tshwane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the scam warning likely only applies to motorists driving in these two metros. However, other stakeholders have warned of traffic fine challenges affecting motorists nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes online payments platform PayCity and criminal defence attorney William Booth. PayCity warned of phishing scams, in which fraudsters send fake fine notifications impersonating the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PayCity is a payments platform that enables South Africans to pay traffic fines, purchase prepaid utilities, and settle their municipal accounts online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have been made aware of several phishing scams where fraudsters send fake traffic fine notification messages pretending to impersonate PayCity,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These messages may include fraudulent payment links from domains that are not associated with PayCity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company added that it does send official payment links via email, SMS, and WhatsApp. However, it said these will always originate from the paycity.co.za domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, any payment links from PayCity will point to the same domain. PayCity urges users not to click on any links or process payments through suspicious or unknown domains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If the communication or payment link does not point to the paycity.co.za domain, it is not safe to use,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) issued a similar warning in July 2025. It said the National Traffic Information System (Natis) will never demand payment through vague emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Beware of phishing emails claiming you owe a traffic fine. Natis will never demand payment via suspicious links. Real emails include your vehicle information,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Delete the scam email. Don’t click on any suspicious links or share personal details.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warning about paying traffic fines online<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In October 2025, criminal defence attorney William Booth issued a warning about paying traffic fines through third-party online platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said doing so is risky, as the platforms can provide incorrect or bogus information, with the primary risk being the reliability and legitimacy of the data they provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also warned about fraudsters impersonating legitimate online traffic fine payment platforms to scam motorists out of their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think the problem these days is we all get notifications from all kinds of sources, and most of them are actually bogus,” said Booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The problem with all these fine sites is that they may or may not be bogus, and they may or may not be correct.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booth said that a traffic fine payment site may claim that a motorist has multiple outstanding fines, but there is a risk that the person who posted the information may have made an error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Then it turns out that you don’t have the fines, and whoever posted it there got it wrong,” said Booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is particularly problematic considering these platforms encourage motorists to pay the fines quickly, as they likely receive a commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They send notifications to motorists requesting payment when the information they have may be incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They may even add up a higher fine than what you are actually supposed to be paying. The message is to be careful about this because it might not be correct, and you end up paying money you don’t have to,” said Booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He advised motorists to verify that such platforms are legitimate and that the information they provide is accurate and reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency has warned of an increase in traffic fine scams targeting South African motorists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":409938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[19172,78720,19174,102466,18388,89370],"class_list":["post-621100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-administrative-adjudication-of-road-traffic-offences-aarto","tag-paycity","tag-road-traffic-infringement-agency-rtia","tag-traffic-fine-scams","tag-traffic-fines","tag-william-booth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621111,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621100\/revisions\/621111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}