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

hpuse

gb12345 wrote: »

There is one glaring omission in it that makes his question invalid (like every thing else he has posted).

He repeatedly mentions the service being misrepresented, when in fact it isn't and the problem is that he chose not to read their explanations of what their service is.

hahaha - question is now invalid, but post is now valid.

Go on...bring in more *crapy defense to cover your a$$es and what you said in earlier pages..

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I have five minutes to kill at the salt mine, paid by the bank into my money card so I thought I would translate

Hi There,
RE: Purchasing an online passport application which was misrepresented. I would like to get conformation from you about the steps I have taken so far and the steps I am going to take is the right direction. Could you please confirm the same as below.
As a first step, I wrote to the company requesting a refund. I clearly told them I am not happy at purchasing a mis-represented and potentially misleading “UK passport application” service offered online advertisng. I have had no response or refund since it is now 7 days. I have copies of all emails and replies received. I will give them 7 more days to reply or issue a refund and then will proceed to the next stage as below.
As a second step (in case there is no refund)
a) I will call the credit card company and will open a complaint/dispute about this transaction. I will give all the details of the transactions including time/dat, website and personals(sc)/email addresses and correspondence received when I complained to the company (first step) I will also submit all email correspondence you have had with this company
b) I will call trading standards consumer advise line of the region I reside. I will sub all details of this transaction and circumstances you think that lead to purchasing this service.

wealdroam

hpuse wrote: »

I will copy-paste my post#1 and send to

a) a bank dispute department
b) Trading standards

Oh, I thought post #330 was telling us you had already sent it.

gb12345

hpuse wrote: »

hahaha - question is now invalid, but post is now valid.

Nope, your post is still invalid - they are quite clearly providing an "Passport Application Handling" service. Their customer signs up, enters all the required information for a passport application. The website then handles that (by processing it to HMPO).

You could have gone directly to HMPO and filled in the application with them, but you chose not to, instead you opted to use the services of a 3rd party to submit the application.

In addition, the service that you chose to use may give you some added benefits that a direct application to HMPO won't give you

hpuse wrote: »

Go on...bring in more *crapy defense to cover your a$$es and what you said in earlier pages..

Nope, I don't need to defend what I said on previous pages - it has been the same all the way through and matches the opinions of 99.99% of posters on this thread.

Unfortuantely, you can't say the same as you have repeatedly spouted inaccurate and misleading advice (who should people complain to if they want to raise a dispute about the misleading content of your posts?) and also changed your OP numerous times, but still failed to remove the inaccurate advice.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

OP got his first post correct, and from the link he gives, is the following advise

Check the URL in the web browser

Read the terms and conditions carefully, including those relating to any dispute resolution procedures the site offers.

The important bit, being the sites own resolution ssyems, even if it does cost £15!

RichardD1970

Didn't realise that the OP had been editing his original post. Is this an admission that it was wrong? What revisions have been made?

George_Michael

George_Michael wrote: »

hpuse,

now that you're back online, any chance of a comment, reply or retraction to your earlier comments (the ones that you are now ignoring)?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64478312&postcount=317

I didn't think so.

hpuse

George_Michael wrote: »

I didn't think so.

Oh sorry !, did you forget to read the sentence in full !!

Section 75 is an 'old' section it is not really useful for modern day and age to handle disputes especially online card fraud

hpuse

A little bit more "pain injection" for the weekend.

Steve Playle, investigations and enforcement manager at Surrey County Council Trading Standards, believes that potential criminal offences are being committed by the businesses behind the copycat websites under The Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. These rules say a business is carrying out a ‘misleading action’ if information it gives ‘in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer’.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2537716/You-stop-Brazen-copycat-website-ignores-advert-ruling.html

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

hpuse wrote: »

A little bit more "pain injection" for the weekend.



http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2537716/You-stop-Brazen-copycat-website-ignores-advert-ruling.html

That is not a copy cat website that OP lost their load on. It is really a fake site, different, because it falls foul of the ASA ruling. Hence it got fined. It is still up and running, and running rough shod of the ruling.

The site OP refers to, do not flout this ruling.

Try again mate, keep looking