Steps to take if you have been ripped-off by a copy-cat government website

Libbybeth wrote: »

No offence taken powerful_Rogue as that is very useful information, however I was merely pointing out that she knew not to send personal information such as credit card details without this, remember she made the mistake of thinking she was on a government website.

Ok to finish the story, as I hope it will be useful to others:
The site she used was called dvla-driving-licence.co.uk owned by TAD services (this at the time was a sponsored link and came up first in the search engine...yes she is now aware of sponsored links)
When she realised that £90 instead of the £50 had been taken from her account she told me straight away. I realised immediately she had used the wrong website (for the trolls... she did this off her own bat as a surprise for me and her dad that she had applied and paid for her own provisional before you all start posting how I should have been watching her!)

To be clear what she had paid £90 for was to receive a form with her details on it (which was then sent to DVLA) - not a licence.

I sent an email to the company (within 7 days) cancelling the transaction and requesting a refund. I had a reply to say that they would refund less £8 charge which was fair. However she only received £32, several emails from me later in which I threatened to take them to Civil court, (please note if you are doing this make sure you give them a reasonable date to refund by as this will be in your favour if you go to court) and with no response from them I told them that I was proceeding with civil action. They then responded and asked for a government gateway number. As we had completed a new application on a form from the post office and posted it we did not have one (do not use the form they sent you - start a new application). I wrote back to the company stating that this was simply delaying tactics by them but gave them a further date to refund by stating that this would be in my favour and I would be claiming my costs too.
Today my daughter was refunded a further £50 so £82 in all, it took about a month to get this.

To the trolls that regulaly post unhelpful remarks that make people feel more stupid then they already do, these sites are deliberately designed to catch people out otherwise they would be very clear on what you are paying for on checkout and would not use colours on their website to mimic other government ones and all their fees would be in the same size font as the rest of the website not smaller. They may be operating within the law but as trading standards say..only just ...they are treading a fine line. On the advice of Valli I will be contacting my MP to highlight these websites.

Money Saving Expert was set up to help us all and for us to help one another as my parents always said if you haven't got anything useful to say...dont say anything at all.....

yangptangkipperbang wrote: »

I was about to post something with a relevance to the thread title - but I feel that I am interrupting a private petty feud !!!

Grow up ....................

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/10679845/Breakthrough-for-refunds-from-copycat-tax-return-website.html