How to spot a scam

Any kind of scam may look or sound threatening, and seem very urgent.

Email scams

• We'll only send you an email if you've contacted us first, or you've signed up to receive email notifications and reminders from us.
• Genuine emails from us always include nzta.govt.nz on the end of the email address. They may also include something else between the @ symbol and 'nzta'. For example, real email addresses we use include:
  • @nzta.govt.nz
  • @comms.nzta.govt.nz
  • @enews.nzta.govt.nz
  • @reply.nzta.govt.nz
• Scam email addresses may look similar, but won't be correct. Scam examples include:
  • @nzta.co.nz
  • @nzta.gov.nz
  • @nzta.qovt.nz
  • @nzta.nz
  • @nzta.com
• A scam email might be missing specific details you’d expect us to know. For example, when we email to say your vehicle licence (rego) is due, we include details like your plate number, vehicle make and rego expiry date. Scammers don’t know that specific information, so can’t include it.
• A scam email might include buttons or links that are malicious and will take you to a fake website. Hover over buttons or links (but don’t click on them) to see if they’ll take you to a genuine government (govt) website.

Non-clickable links in our emails

We've made the links in our rego reminder emails non-clickable, to help protect you from common scams. We recommend you:

• continue to follow the advice on this page to be sure an email you receive is really from us
• go to our website and search for or click on Renew vehicle licence to be sure the transaction is our real transaction.

Text message scams

We may send text messages in the situations we’ve explained here.

They come from the phone number 3651.

We recommend you:

• continue to check the advice on this page to see if a text message you receive is really from us
• go to the online services section or use our website search to find the transaction you need, instead of clicking any links in text messages.

Online services