yeah i got that a few times too, and ticketed it.I encountered this 'unable to pay off bounty/fine' bug several times tonight.
The solution to this is simple. Just watch where you are firing! Look behind your target and in your immediate area (both visually and using the scanner set to minimum range).
Once I got into the habit of doing that, such accidents stopped happening.
^ Ahem... Although this is usually the correct answer, as others have noted in this thread (see the 4th post, on page 1), the problem with THIS bug is that it's also sometimes causing you to be Wanted when you attack a WANTED ship you have already scanned... which should never happen. In any case, exit/re-enter clears it, but you lose your target and some time by doing so.
This has been going on for me today on every visit to a NAV beacon to bounty hunt, and is indeed a major annoyance.
I've just had the same, if you log off then on again it will be gone.
In game at a nav point and an NPC wanders into my beams. Instantly I am "Wanted" as shown in my HUD and the status screen and the local Fed ship starts attacking me.
Jump to supercruise to the nearest independent station to pay the fine and.... no fine to pay, and my wanted status is gone already.
And...
The reverse happens the wanted status persists although there is no fine to pay in the Contacts area of the interface.
Seems only to occur since 1.07.
They also reduced the spawn rate of enemies in planetary rings drastically. Even if you get an enemy spawn they are soon replaced by police vessel spawns and emptyness.
The only consisteny are clean spawns that jump immediately.
The game is over now, I liked it but as a bounty hunter it's over.