Are you a shyster site victim for EHICs, passports and other renewals?

Former_MSE_Debs

Poll started 4 Mar 2014

Search for an EHIC, driving licence, passport or similar and you risk paying a shyster site for doing nowt. These sites appear high up on Google and dress up like legitimate sites, then charge you extra for what’s normally just easy form-filling. The Government’s announced extra cash for a crackdown - we want to judge the scale of the problem.


Have you been caught out (or nearly caught out) by a shyster site and paid over the odds?

Vote in this week's poll

Did you vote? Why did you pick that option? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below. To see the results from last time, click this

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.


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garysolo

I got the wrong web site for Microsoft messenger and got charged £6 for a completely free program. Two 3 pound texts. I felt so angry it was untrue.

joey2307

The results of this poll are very distressing.

If Government won't/cant tackle this then we need to get people to wise up. Maths education and money management are becoming increasingly important by the day.

jangolf

My husband naively paid one of these shyster sites to complete the application form for my son's passport.
What I don't understand is why the government departments aren't all over them like a rash.
They claim (in the small print) to provide a checking service but the form was not completed correctly and I have had to get another to complete from the post office. If they are not actually providing the service is that not fraud? Surely they are breaking trading standards?
Having sent personal details to a shyster company isn't there a good chance that they are not protecting these details properly? So where are the data protection officers?
Why isn't the gov.uk site at the top of every google or other search engine search results when searching for UK government services. This would prevent Joe Public going to the majority of these shyster sites.
Why are the credit card companies complicit in helping these firms con money out of people?

red69_2

We were driving to Germany. Many cities require a parking permit. Many sites wanted 20 Euro for a 6 Euro permit. The Berlin city site has a section in English, and the permit at cost.

pogofish

jangolf wrote: »

My husband naively paid one of these shyster sites to complete the application form for my son's passport.
What I don't understand is why the government departments aren't all over them like a rash.
They claim (in the small print) to provide a checking service but the form was not completed correctly and I have had to get another to complete from the post office. If they are not actually providing the service is that not fraud? Surely they are breaking trading standards?
Having sent personal details to a shyster company isn't there a good chance that they are not protecting these details properly? So where are the data protection officers?
Why isn't the gov.uk site at the top of every google or other search engine search results when searching for UK government services. This would prevent Joe Public going to the majority of these shyster sites.
Why are the credit card companies complicit in helping these firms con money out of people?

You would be better posting/seeking advice on one or other of the threads that actually cover practical ways of dealing with the scammers, not on a poll thread.

Jenefina

I got caught out trying to unlock my dad's upgrade handset he didn't use. EE wanted the phone to be active for 6 months before they'd unlock it for £20, and I was on Vodafone network in a 12 month contract.
officialiphoneunlock[dot]co[dot]uk advertised an iphone 5 unlock 'preorder' for £20, they didn't make it clear what the final cost would be or when this would become available. a few weeks later they emailed to say they could now do the unlocks but the final fee was £49.99.
I stupidly paid the extra £30 hoping that it was genuine after all, but a few days later they said due to high demand they hadn't got through all of the preorders so I could upgrade for anouth £40 to the 'premium' same day service or wait. I chose to wait and they informed me my handset was blocked and unable to be unlocked. It wasn't. I checked with EE to confirm and went back to them with the information. They then offered me an upgrade for a further fee or a refund. I asked for the refund in January but still nothing... so ashamed for putting my trust in them and being taken for a ride. so many other people must be in a similar situation.

penjane

Googled passport renewal. Site came up called 'passport direct' (already misleading). Hit button for 'passport renewal', completed form and paid £69. As soon as message came up at end, realised my mistake. No legal cooling off period so unable to cancel. Even a short cooling off period (say 24 hours) for services would help. Surely, no-one would actually use these sites if they realised what they were. Failing all else, shouldn't Trading Standards be able to regulate a maximum price for what they do? Post Office do checking for £8.75.

monkeysox_2

i work at the post office and see this especially passports an awful lot,please go through direct.gov.uk,this site has links to all the goverment websites that you can get passports etc from.we all do it,we google what we are looking for and tend to go for the top result first,i was given the advice never to do this and thankfully have not been caught out by these terrible sites,go into the post office we can normally point people in the right direction.

System

The poll proves that 30% of people who responded either do not read the information presented to them or were incapable of assimilating that information.

System

penjane wrote: »

Googled passport renewal. Site came up called 'passport direct' (already misleading).

You mean the site that has

'
UK Passport Application Check and Send Service

clearly on their opening page