Fair trading infringement notices

There are various ways you can pay or respond to an infringement notice issued by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) or the Queensland Police Service (on behalf of OFT).

Paying the notice

You can pay the notice online, by post or in person.

If the penalty is $200 or more, you can also apply to pay the fine by instalment plan—payment plans don’t have extra fees. To apply to pay by instalments—with a minimum $60 first payment to OFT—either:

• select apply to pay an infringement by instalments when applying through the online portal method below
  or
• complete option 2 of the response to infringement notice (on the back of the notice) and send it to us with your first payment.

The infringement is then transferred to the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER). All future payments for payment plans are made directly to SPER, any magistrates court or Queensland Government Agent Program office (QGAP).

Online

Use the following online options to manage your infringement notice payment.

Online portal

You can pay and manage an infringement notice using the online portal—select ‘Fair Trading Infringement Administration’.

Credit or debit card

You can pay online using Visa or Mastercard  (credit or debit card). No other cards will be accepted.

When you have submitted the payment form, you will be redirected to a secure payment portal hosted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

BPAY

You can choose the pay later option to pay by BPAY. When you’ve submitted the payment form, you will see details of how to make a BPAY payment from your cheque, savings or transaction account.

If paying by this option, you will need to do this as soon as you’ve submitted the form.

By post

Post your response to infringement notice (found on the back of the notice) to:

Office of Fair Trading
GPO Box 3111
BRISBANE  QLD  4001

In person

You can pay by cash, cheque, EFTPOS, or debit or credit card at any OFT regional office and Government Service Centre or QGAP office.

Challenging the notice

If you choose to challenge the infringement notice, you can have the matter heard in court.

To challenge the notice, complete option 3 in the response to infringement notice and return it to us within 28 days of the issue date.

A prosecution against you may then begin in a magistrates court.

You should carefully consider whether you have valid grounds to have the infringement overturned. If you are unsuccessful in court and the infringement is upheld, you will be liable for extra costs.

Failing to respond to the notice

If you don’t choose an option in response to the infringement notice—pay or challenge—within 28 days of the issue date, it will be referred to SPER and you will be required to pay more fees.

SPER will then issue an enforcement order and make all efforts to resolve the fine, which could result in one or more enforcement actions.