Tony Newbury, Commissioner of Fines Administration at the Office of State Revenue, said emails were being issued encouraging people to pay fake the penalty notices issued for offences they did not commit.
"If you receive one of these emails, do not click on any links or pay anything," Mr Newbury said.
"OSR or the State Debt Recovery Office never issue fines or penalty notices by email in the first instance, so people should treat any notification of this type as suspicious.
"People can log on to our website, www.sdro.nsw.gov.au, enter the penalty or infringement number and offence date to check the validity of their fine.
"You can also phone our call centre directly on 1300 655 805 to ensure the fine is genuine.
"For those who have already unfortunately paid the fine, I'd encourage you to contact your bank or financial institution in the first instance, then report the incident to Scamwatch.
"This is a very sophisticated attack and while the scam emails and prompts may look genuine, they are 100 per cent fake and I urge people not to pay these fraudulent fines."
People should also take care to protect their identity online, he said. Analysis suggests the scammers are based in Denmark and Russia.
Minister for Fair Trading, Matthew Mason-Cox, said scams of this kind succeed because they look like the real thing.
"Scams target everyone regardless of background, age and income," he said.
"I encourage people to be very critical of unexpected requests for money and to be vigilant about ensuring the demand for money is legitimate by checking with the institution that issued the notice."
Many scams originate from outside Australia and once money is sent overseas it is virtually impossible to recover.
On average NSW Fair Trading receives more than 1,500 reports on scams each year and we encourage members of the public to report any activity they suspect is a scam to NSW Fair Trading on 13 32 20 and Scamwatch.
