South Africans must be cautious about paying fines online through third-party platforms, as such sites can provide incorrect or falsified information.
This warning comes from William Booth, a criminal defence attorney, who spoke to Cape Talk about the dangers of using third-party platforms.
He noted that a key concern of such sites is the reliability and legitimacy of their data.
Fraud is another problem, with many criminals impersonating legitimate online platforms to scam unsuspecting South Africans out of their money.
“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.
“The problem with all these fine sites is that they may or may not be bogus, and they may or may not be correct.”
He explained that even if someone got a notification from a legitimate site that they had outstanding fines, there’s no guarantee that the person sending the update may have gotten the information wrong.
This creates issues, as most third-party sites advise you to pay your fines as quickly as possible, mainly because such sites usually get a commission from the payments.
“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.
Given this, he noted that motorists need to verify that such platforms are legitimate and that their information is accurate.
He also highlighted that the several scams focused on motoring fines are doing the rounds in the country at the moment.
This includes phishing scams that target motorists with fake traffic fine notifications – PayCity reported in August 2025 that it had seen fraudsters impersonating it.
“We have been made aware of several phishing scams where fraudsters send fake traffic fine notification messages pretending to impersonate PayCity,” it said.
“These messages may include fraudulent payment links from domains that are not associated with PayCity.” It warned that, if a payment link doesn’t point to the paycity.co.za domain, it is not safe to use.
New traffic laws
The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) has been active on social media, outlining how the new traffic infringement system will work under the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act.
The first phase of the Aarto act is set to rollout on 1 December to 69 municipalities and will be followed by a further 144 on 1 April 2026.
Later in 2026, on 1 September, the Aarto demerit point system will be introduced.
The demerit point system will assign points to motorists when they commit traffic infringements, with increasingly more severe punishments at certain penalty point thresholds.
This includes having their licence suspended for nine months if 15 demerit points are accumulated and, should a driver reach this threshold three times, having their licence permanently revoked.
Those caught speeding or committing any finable traffic infringement will be given an infringement notice.
“When you receive an infringement notice, you have 32 days to respond,” the RTIA said.
Those who pay within 32 days will receive a 50% discount on the fine, while those who do not will receive a courtesy letter.
Following this letter, motorists will have another 32 days to pay the fine before an enforcement order is issued.
“While an enforcement order remains in force, an infringer is prohibited from renewing his or her driving licence, driving permit, or licence disk, until the enforcement order has been complied with,” the RTIA said.
“The purpose of an enforcement order is for the law to take its course where an infringer has not complied with either an infringement notice or, subsequently, a courtesy letter.”
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