Licence Safe - dont touch them with a barge pole!

yllekkathy76

My driving licence needed renewing so I typed it into google and went on to what looked like the DVLA site. Entered my details and paid the £14 renewal. Easy. Except it wasn't DVLA. It was licence safe (a checking company), not illegal, but they charge you £93 for the privilege of "checking" your licence before it gets sent off. And the £93 is apparently for a years subscription. The only reason I realized was that I checked my bank balance straight after and realized I had made a mistake. Of course, there is no number to ring, only an email. I emailed them straight away and they replied saying my licence had already been checked and sent of and therefore I had received a service. I replied saying that I had made a mistake, accept that I had received a service but that this was a years subscription and I was not happy with the charge. I also asked about a cooling off period. Approximately 50 emails later, having been told many times that "the cooling off period doesn't apply in this case" and them firstly offering me £20, then £30, then £40, I threatened them with small claims court. I requested various pieces of information from them and threw every piece of legislation possible at them. They stuck to their guns a bit longer and I didn't back down. They finally offered me £60 which I accepted, purely because I was sick to death of contacting them. The moral of the story - make sure you are on DVLA when you renew your licence. This company is horrendous! And if you do get caught out, don't back down. Keep pushing for your refund. Its the first thing that comes up on google when you search for renewing your licence. 
Kathy

JamoLew

Sorry you fell for this -- the official site doesnt say Ad before it as well but also includes those important words www.gov.uk

Sadly all too common - Passports also has the same "problem"

flashg67

I thought at one point that Google were supposed to be relegating these ads so they weren't the first results. I guess ad revenue makes them more money that actually pointing to the correct site like you might expect a search engine too.... 

zagfles

This was supposed to be sorted by those clever engineers at google!

What search criteria did you use? I've just searched "driving licence renewal" and "uk driving licence renewal" on google and both come up with the genuine gov.uk site top, no ads.

See this thread re passports and these type of sites losing in court when they try to sue their customers, so not surprising they gave you most of your money back

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5185879/bbc-passport-website-sues-its-customers-richard-howard-britishpassportservices/p1

IvanOpinion

I just ran a google search and there was one ad followed by the correct gov.uk site.  How many more times does the government have to tell us that if it doesn't say '.gov.uk' then it is not the official site.  Sadly you made a mistake and should count yourself very lucky that you managed to get most of your money back.

Pollycat

Another thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6242903/licence-safe-scam/p1

For anything remotely governmental - including stuff like licences, POA - I would always go to gov.uk and use the search function on there rather than relying on Google, Bing etc.

This has been going on for years for things like passports, EHIC, driving licences and driving tests (theory & practical) and even fishing licences.

Someone on the thread I've linked to found the same for Land Registry.

Martin Lewis mentioned this on one of his shows in February.

IIRC, he said what these companies do isn't legally wrong but he felt it was morally wrong.

He mentioned all the other things that companies offer a 'value added' service for such as passports, EHIC etc.

zagfles said:

This was supposed to be sorted by those clever engineers at google!

What search criteria did you use? I've just searched "driving licence renewal" and "uk driving licence renewal" on google and both come up with the genuine gov.uk site top, no ads.

I Googled the same and the top 4 hits were all marked 'Ad'.

gov.uk was the 5th.

yllekkathy76 said:

 The moral of the story - make sure you are on DVLA when you renew your licence.

The moral of the story really should be regardless of what you are doing, make sure the company you are giving money to is the right one.

All this could easily be avoided by people taking a little time and a little care before clicking on 'pay now'.
The internet really isn't a fluffy, friendly place and the sooner people wise up and start treating websites as potential rip-offs, scams and cons until their research proves otherwise, the sooner these companies will run out of victims.

molerat

zagfles said:

This was supposed to be sorted by those clever engineers at google!

Certainly has been sorted by those clever people at UBlock Origin

forgotmyname

Google has adverts?   Cannot see any.

A fan of Ublock Origin also,   switched from AdBlock+ and its a big improvement.

I may have one of the cleanest Youtube pages available.  Although they spoilt it a little with their double line

spacing of the subscriptions.   Previously all my subs fitted on a single page, now it only shows 7 and a

"Show 28 more"  link.  

That gets my OCD....  YouTube.. WHY!!!!!!!    

Pollycat

forgotmyname said:

Google has adverts?   Cannot see any.

A fan of Ublock Origin also,   switched from AdBlock+ and its a big improvement.

I may have one of the cleanest Youtube pages available.  Although they spoilt it a little with their double line

spacing of the subscriptions.   Previously all my subs fitted on a single page, now it only shows 7 and a

"Show 28 more"  link.  

That gets my OCD....  YouTube.. WHY!!!!!!!    

The problem is - lots of people can see Ads.

But don't always realise that they are Ads.

And that's why these threads exist.

Tokmon

yllekkathy76 said:

My driving licence needed renewing so I typed it into google and went on to what looked like the DVLA site. Entered my details and paid the £14 renewal. Easy. Except it wasn't DVLA. It was licence safe (a checking company), not illegal, but they charge you £93 for the privilege of "checking" your licence before it gets sent off. And the £93 is apparently for a years subscription. The only reason I realized was that I checked my bank balance straight after and realized I had made a mistake. Of course, there is no number to ring, only an email. I emailed them straight away and they replied saying my licence had already been checked and sent of and therefore I had received a service. I replied saying that I had made a mistake, accept that I had received a service but that this was a years subscription and I was not happy with the charge. I also asked about a cooling off period. Approximately 50 emails later, having been told many times that "the cooling off period doesn't apply in this case" and them firstly offering me £20, then £30, then £40, I threatened them with small claims court. I requested various pieces of information from them and threw every piece of legislation possible at them. They stuck to their guns a bit longer and I didn't back down. They finally offered me £60 which I accepted, purely because I was sick to death of contacting them. The moral of the story - make sure you are on DVLA when you renew your licence. This company is horrendous! And if you do get caught out, don't back down. Keep pushing for your refund. Its the first thing that comes up on google when you search for renewing your licence. 
Kathy

Well if you think the license safe website looks like the DVLA website and didn't see all the information saying it was and missed the amount you were paying then is your eyesight/situational awareness good enough for you to be driving a car on the road?

deannagone

Thanks to this thread, just installed Ublock extension.  Thanks to this thread, when searching for a new energy supplier I don't get five ads in front of the energy suppliers website that I actually want.  Octopus Energy ads are particularly persistent and appeared even when I put in alternative search terms related to utilities.  I used to use Adblock, didn't work very well.