PayCity has warned South African drivers about a new wave of phishing scams where criminals are sending fake traffic fine notifications while pretending to be the company.
The online payment platform offers South Africans an easy way to pay traffic fines, buy prepaid utilities, and pay their municipal accounts, so these scams are significant to anyone who uses the platform.
“We have been made aware of several phishing scams where fraudsters send fake traffic fine notification messages pretending to impersonate PayCity,” it said in a notice sent to users.
PayCity also indicated that the messages might include fraudulent payment links from domains not associated with the company.
It also emphasised that while it does offer second official payment links via channels such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp, its traffic fines will always come from the paycity.co.za domain.
Additionally, payment links will always lead to this domain.
Therefore, users must never click on any links or make payments with suspicious or unknown domains.
“If the communication or payment link does not point to the paycity.co.za domain, it is not safe to use,” said PayCity.
Should a user receive an email they’re not fully certain is legitimate, they can forward it to [email protected], and PayCity will verify it.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation issued a similar statement in July this year, noting that the National Traffic Information System (Natis) would never request payment of fines via email.
It also stated that real emails from Natis will include the driver’s vehicle details and that official communications will direct recipients to the Natis online platform.
This warning came after reports of scams where drivers were sent an email claiming they had an R210 outstanding fine, which had been doubled to R420 due to late payment.
The scam also included a promise that those who paid quickly would get an interest refund.
R7,000 daily traffic fines
The Democratic Alliance (DA) recently accused the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) of imposing a R7,000 daily traffic fine collection requirement on its officers.
Michael Sun, a DA spokesperson for community safety, noted that the JMPD had been pressuring officers to meet the requirements and would be offered overtime payments if they met the daily target.
“Officers have reliably informed us that they are under pressure to each collect at least R7,000 in traffic fines daily,” said Sun.
“This effectively turns law enforcement into a revenue-generating system rather than a public safety service.”
This, Sun argued, was incentivising officers to issue fines instead of enforcing the law, managing traffic, and preventing crime.
Sun added that this R7,000 requirement also coincides with the drastic increase in the number of law enforcement roadblocks.
The JMPD vigorously denied the claim, noting that the roadblocks are intended to maintain road safety rather than collect revenue.
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