ESTA Scam - beware!!

Victorthe2nd

As regular (well, not in the last 18 months!), we're used to aplying for ESTA. But, this time, and in the expectation that borders may open and we can finally visit our family, we applied for new ESTAs yesterday.

Foolishly, I did not do my homework properly and ended up on an extremely convining website that allowed me to apply for myself and my wife and ended up charging me $140 instead of the official $14.....I know......."It will never happen to me" right? But, it has. 

My credit card company tell me that they will dispute the payment, but I'm not confident. It's my fault. There is no "scam" here, unless a VERY good copy of a US Government website counts as fraud. 

Beware, people, if you're applying for ESTA. Make sure that the site you're bookin through is an official USA government site, but don't ask me how you do that!

Caz3121

Victorthe2nd said:

Make sure that the site you're bookin through is an official USA government site, but don't ask me how you do that!

here is the link https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov (always look for 'gov' in the address of official sites)

Pollycat

These websites have been about for many years.

It also used to be passports and EHIC. I guess it won't be long before GHIC websites start popping up.

From various threads, it's driving licence renewal too - there's 4 websites above GOV.UK in a Google search.

When I Google Esta application, there are 3 websites above the official one (link given by Caz3121).

Those 3 websites have Ad against them.

Do you understand what this means?

They pay Google to appear at the top of a search.

You don't say which website you used but did it have a disclaimer that it wasn't the official website?

All the 3 websites I mention above did say on their home page that they were not associated with the government.