Lookalike scammers

Landregistryukscammers

Why does the government allow lookalike scammers?
I recently wanted to do a land registry search so I searched google for The Land Registry and sure enough up popped Land Registry UK. I typed in the property address I wanted the details of and the site said the Land certificate and ground plan were available at a cost of £50 each. I clicked on the link to buy them both and filled my card details in to pay the £100 plus £10 for hard copies to be sent to me as well as online. I viewed the documents and printed them off. I later went back onto google on the same search and when scrolling further down the page discovered the genuine government Land Registry site, realising I’d been taken in by the first site I looked for the same information I required on the government site and discovered it only costs £14.00

I’ve now found there are several sites mimicking and passing off as different official government departments and after taking legal advice have been told there’s nothing illegal in it, as tucked away at the bottom of of the page in small print the scammers include information explaining they are not the official government site. The scammers rely on the victim never accessing that information as it’s included AFTER they’ve completed their application and it’s  AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE where no one needs to look at that stage.
The scamming company access the genuine government site, pay the £14.00 fee and supply the genuine information to the victim and makes a rip off profit of £86.00
The Government are in a way complicit in this scam and don’t care that people are being conned because if it was, it would outlaw the practise and if that’s difficult to do legally, it could easily at least ensure that the government site appears at the top of the list when people are looking for genuine government departments on the popular search engines, as the scammers certainly manage to do.

TadleyBaggie

Blame Google (other search engines are available) who happily put the lookalike sites at the top of the search results because they are paid. The clue is the listing will say "Ad" next to it.

Can't see how the Government are complicit, they have no say of Google organise their search results.

TadleyBaggie

Strangely if I type "the land registry" into google, the top result is the proper Land Registry site.

HillStreetBlues

TadleyBaggie said:

Strangely if I type "the land registry" into google, the top result is the proper Land Registry site.

Are you using an add-on such as ABP or uBlock?
I use uBlock and the top result is the actual genuine site, with uBlock disable the top site is a "fake" operated by  8Forty AE (trading as Land Registry UK)  registered in UAE

TadleyBaggie

HillStreetBlues said:

TadleyBaggie said:

Strangely if I type "the land registry" into google, the top result is the proper Land Registry site.

Are you using an add-on such as ABP or uBlock?
I use uBlock and the top result is the actual genuine site, with uBlock disable the top site is a "fake" operated by  8Forty AE (trading as Land Registry UK)  registered in UAE

I had AdGuard installed but it was paused for some reason. Makes no difference if I turn it on or off (on a MacBook).

born_again

TadleyBaggie said:

Strangely if I type "the land registry" into google, the top result is the proper Land Registry site.

Government are actually quite good at getting these sites unlisted from the search engines.

But ultimately a "SPONSORED" next to the link, is something we should all be spotting. 

TELLIT01

TadleyBaggie said:

Strangely if I type "the land registry" into google, the top result is the proper Land Registry site.

If you omit 'The', the first 3 entries are for scam site advertisements.  The 4th entry is the official Gov.uk site.

Muttleythefrog

Lots of these middle men type sites to act as agents to deal with government departments.... you see it with booking tests etc too targeting migrants...... avoid.... it should be easy enough.

Pollycat

This has been going on for years. 

Thread needs moving.

M25

Landregistryukscammers said:

Why does the government allow lookalike scammers?

They don't. It's your responsibilty so blame yourself for not being careful.

Don't answer the door to strangers.