Two minutes on the clock, a credit card at hand, the living room screen on. The SMS announced a heightened fine to be paid “before midnight” under threat of legal action, and the sender had signed with the acronym of the agency responsible for road offences. The payment went through without a hitch. What the message did not say: this money never reached any public treasury.
This scenario repeats thousands of times each day in France. Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr reports waves of fraudulent messages, emails and texts, that impersonate the National Agency for Automated Processing of Offences and the online fines payment service. The technique has a technical name, smishing, phishing by text, but its effectiveness relies on a very simple psychological trigger: no one likes the idea of a fine that climbs.
- ANTAI never sends fine notices by SMS, only by registered postal mail
- Fake SMS offer clickable links to fake official sites to steal banking data
- The urgency deadline and alarmist tone of fraudulent messages do not match any real administrative procedure
- Verifying a fine notice requires the telepayment number shown on the paper notice, never accessible by SMS
A message that does not exist in the real procedure
This is the point the ANTAI has been repeating for months on its own site. ANTAI notices must originate from the address [email protected]. An SMS, whatever its form, is not among the channels used by the agency. For the record, ANTAI never sends SMS messages. A traffic officer never demands immediate payment through this channel.
The actual notice of fine, legitimate, takes a much slower path. ANTAI sends fine notices exclusively by registered postal mail or ordinary letter, a paper notice containing the license plate number, the exact date and time, the precise location, the nature of the offence, the amount, the telepayment number and the payment or dispute deadlines. None of this arrives by text, never in a rush, never with a clickable link to act instantly.
The countdown itself rests on no known regulatory text. There is no trace of a deadline of this type in the public procedures reviewed. The only certainty is that the threat of a surcharge triggered by a simple SMS does not correspond to any rule published by the administration.
The fake site mimics the official one to the point of confusion
The link directs to a page that copies the colors, the logo, and sometimes even the administrative vocabulary of the real portal. This message pushes you to follow a link that leads to a site that looks official where personal information and card details are requested. The objective never changes.
The goal of the cybercriminals is to steal personal and banking information for fraudulent use. The data entered does not stop with the first scammer. On the fraudulent site, the information entered by the victim is collected by the crooks who can use it directly or even resell it to other cybercriminals, for instance to carry out other kinds of scams, identity theft attempts, or fraud with a fake banking advisor. A bank card compromised once can be reused months later, in a completely different form.
Three signals almost always reveal the scam: an alarmist tone absent from real letters, a vague or strangely precise amount, and above all the presence of a clickable link. No authentic electronic fine notice includes a clickable fraudulent link; viewing or contesting is done only via official sites. A serious site never pressures its user to click within a minute.
Verify before paying; react if it’s already done
The method is a single action. Never follow the received link; instead, open your own browser and type the official address. Fine payments are made on amendes.gouv.fr, parking payments on stationnement.gouv.fr, and the consultation or contesting of fines on antai.gouv.fr. On these platforms, a single piece of information is enough to verify a real case.
On the real site, payment requires the telepayment number and the key that appear on the paper notice or its PDF file. No notice received by mail, no telepayment number? There is simply nothing to pay.
The reporting mechanism, for its part, is done on a national platform designed for this purpose. For months, fraudulent SMS messages, emails or letters have been offering to regularize or contest unpaid fines on fake administrative sites by illicitly collecting personal data or banking details; it is possible to report the fraudulent website at www.internet-signalement.gouv.fr and to forward the SMS to number 33700, the platform for reporting spam voice calls and SMS. This reflex, even without clicking or paying, helps block the sender’s numbers by the operators.
And if the payment has already been made? The top priority remains to contact your bank immediately to block the transaction and report it as fraudulent. Ask your bank to reimburse any possible fraudulent operations. Every day counts: the longer the process drags on, the harder it becomes to prove that the payment was not voluntary.
A figure to keep in mind before feeling alone in front of the screen: according to research data observed in recent months, searches related to the agency’s fake emails and texts run into thousands each month in France, a sign that fraud is running at full speed and affects both hurried drivers and the more cautious.
Sources: selectra.info | cybermalveillance.gouv.fr
