Ministry warns of fake Fixed Penalty Notice text messages

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has warned the pub­lic about text mes­sages cir­cu­lat­ing with links claim­ing to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ment for Fixed Penal­ty No­tices.

In a me­dia re­lease, the min­istry said the mes­sages are fake and did not orig­i­nate from the min­istry.

The min­istry al­so stat­ed that the elec­tron­ic mes­sages are not is­sued by, af­fil­i­at­ed with, or con­nect­ed to the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty of the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic were ad­vised not to click on the links con­tained in the mes­sages and not to share per­son­al or fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion through the links.

The min­istry said peo­ple should dis­re­gard the mes­sages and re­ly on­ly on of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the pay­ment of Fixed Penal­ty No­tices and oth­er ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the min­istry.

The re­lease not­ed that of­fi­cial min­istry plat­forms re­main the au­tho­rised source of in­for­ma­tion on Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty ser­vices and pay­ment pro­ce­dures.

The min­istry thanked mem­bers of the pub­lic for their vig­i­lance and co­op­er­a­tion as the mat­ter con­tin­ues to cir­cu­late.

No in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed on how many peo­ple may have re­ceived the mes­sages or whether any re­ports were made to law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties.

The min­istry urged cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise cau­tion when re­ceiv­ing un­so­licit­ed elec­tron­ic mes­sages re­quest­ing pay­ments or per­son­al in­for­ma­tion linked to gov­ern­ment ser­vices.