Facebook groups continue to offer a ‘marketplace’ for drivers to sell demerit points and infringements to other drivers across Australia.
A page called Clearing demerit points and fines was set up on April 28, 2025 with its Sydney-based admin saying: “We don’t just deal with fines from NSW [New South Wales], but we do work with fines from all over the country.”
At the time of publication, the public Facebook group had 725 members and was climbing after just over six weeks of ‘operating’.
An admin post on May 10, 2025 read: “Good morning y’all guys you can start sending in your demerit points and fines for wipe off [sic] without any upfront payment … please do ensure to inbox just the admins of this group.”
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When approached by CarExpert about how the page works, the admin asked for a WhatsApp number, requiring an image of the infringement as well as the name of the person on the fine issued.
When we asked if there’s a fee for the service, the page admin told CarExpert the cost of the transfer is dependent on the fine and would be a similar amount to the infringement cost itself.
In NSW and Queensland, drivers falsely nominating another driver for an offence can be fined up to $11,000, while in Victoria individuals can be fined as much as $9000 and face jail time.
The NSW state government established a three-month taskforce in mid-2024 to crack down on drivers transferring demerit points.
The government said the taskforce would also look at how police can better investigate situations where someone owns a vehicle and doesn’t drive it but it still receives infringements – a sign they may be having points transferred to their licence.
The taskforce itself was prompted by a high-profile case where a delivery driver had accrued more than 200 demerit points in a single month.
A standard full NSW licence is suspended after 12 demerit points are reached within a 36-month period.
In December 2024, the NSW Government announced the taskforce had worked with Australian Border Force to close a loophole which enabled demerit points to be traded, most notably to international licence holders.
“The Taskforce has identified widespread nominations of other drivers on international licences as a weakness in the system that must be tightened,” said a statement from the NSW Government.
“An individual in one extreme case racked up more than 1500 demerit points, and two others more than 500 demerits, before the system caught up with them.”
Police said one address in Sydney was used by 30 licence holders for a total of 2000 demerit points – while as many as 40,000 drivers were unknown to local authorities and may have been obtained on the dark web.
More than 125,000 penalty notices were issued – amounting to 256,000 demerit points – to drivers with international licences between May 2022 and January 2024.
Around 50 repeat offenders had their driver’s licence suspended.
Changes to reduce the illegal trade of demerit points include a new law in effect from May 1, 2025 requiring international licence holders to switch to a NSW driver’s licence after being in the state for three months.
It also includes close collaboration with Australian Border Force officers in policing international drivers.
“In cases where they were not even in Australia, the system will be able to more quickly put the fine and demerit points back to the driver who falsely nominated someone else.”