To be so cross that I have been scammed out of nearly £300

[SuedeEffectPochette]

Renewing a passport. Clicked on a link of what I thought was the official website. Paid £70 a passport. And there are four! And all they did was fill the form in. So cross. Hoping my credit card provider will refund otherwise I will be having to go to the County Court. Miserable me. No one can afford to lose that amount of money TBH I can afford more than most but I can't be the only poor soul who has fallen for this. So angry that somewhere out there other people are victims too, and maybe can afford less than me......

Agree with soupdragon.
If they weren't trying to scam they would say 'Welcome to 'a' UK Passport Service' etc. not 'Welcome to 'the' UK Passport Service. The cost of this service is sufficiently high for people to assume it includes the cost of the passport. If it was c. £20 then it would be obvious it doesn't.

Hmm, just been having a read on money saving expert about the site you used and similar ones and I think I have to take back my last post .

I was optimistic earlier as I had listened to a Radio 4 podcast on 'clone government websites'. It's on Radio IPlayer dated 9/11/2013. I can't remember for sure but I thought people were getting refunds. It may be worth listening to it.

The government don't help by having a different look and feel to every official site

Which has been mostly fixed, and is rapidly being fixed for the remainder. There's now a very strong house style for gov.uk, which the passport office uses.

There seems to be two main sites that come up each with their own refund policy

www.passport.uk.com/. This company doesn't seem to refund.

Www.uk-passport.net/. This company seems to refund. Sometimes in full, sometimes minus an £8 administration fee.

It's a bit much to blame the company for you not reading pretty much any of the info on the site! It says over and over again on the first page that they are not the hmpo, that they offer a different service. who gives their card details to a website without a cursory look at who they are giving money to?

There was a thing about this on the radio last week. I noticed it because I had recently seen them when sorting out passports myself.

Bottom line is don't just click through to the first link that comes up - they are sites that pay to be promoted to the top of searches.

And anything official usually comes from a website with .gov.uk. The official passport site also has an option to fill in the form for you - takes about a week to come through and then all you have to do it check the details, sign it and add the right photos and the fee (which is steep enough in its own right).

Those sites are out to confuse people - but I think it probably comes under buyer beware.

If people really are that stupid, they deserve to lose their cash. Perhaps it will teach them a lesson.

That's just horrid - I'm so sorry. Last time I renewed my passport, I did it through the Post Office. Can one still do it that way? I hope OP gets her money back, but doesn't sound hopeful. These rip-off merchants are just disgusting - how do they sleep nights?

These people scammed me as well but I wrote them a strongly worded email explaining that their "service" is a con and that if they did not refund me immediately I would report them to the FSA. (Now FCA).
They wrote back to me apologising that I did not find the service useful (!) and they refunded my money. Try that?

By the way it's not "stupid people"

The website is very convincing!

I work in financial services and I was confused into paying for this as I did it quickly and thought it was an official site!

Be careful with EHIC cards as well, as there are sites out there charging for them even though they should be free.

there's similar for London congestion charge. The first site that came up when i googled to pay online charged £16. I was so sure it was wrong I carried on googling and paid - £10 - through tfl

how will you get your money back though? Aren't these middlemen legit, even if a scam from our point of view?
hope you do though!

The rules are that they have to be "fair, clear and not misleading" which that passport website def is not on all 3 counts while technically not being a "con". You are entitled to a refund

It looks like the Adverting Standards Council are now taking an interest.

www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2013/Copycat-websites.aspx

They might not be fair, but they are clear.

Well, by way of update, I am not sure that I will get my money back. I will keep you all posted though....

Just to show that every cloud has a silver lining, as a direct result of feeling utterly miffed off that I have lost so much money, I resolved to stop paying for parking at £10/day and find somewhere near work to park free and walk (the modern day equivalent of wearing a hair shirt, maybe!). Anyway, turns out that after a bit of investigation I can park not too far away from where I was parking (for £10) and it's free! So after a few weeks I will have "saved" the money I lost, got a bit fitter and will then carry on saving for the future...........So OK that makes me feel a bit more positive about the whole yucky experience. But I can't believe nothing can be done about these sites.............The Credit Card companies say that they can do nothing, the passport office ditto, and Independent Complaints Commission say as long as it's in the small print, that's ok. Who is really protecting the consumer in all this?

speak to your credit card company and demand the amount over and above the official fee back
if they refuse tell them that you will be taking it up with your MP and the local and national press that they have given a merchant account to scammers and are therefore profiting from dubious activity (as they take a cut of every transaction)

Thanks for the update. That is a big saving on the parking.

I am sorry you haven't managed to get your money back. It is shocking that these companies are allowed to operate as they do.

Did you listen to the Radio 4 Moneybox podcast I recommended earlier in the thread.
HERE is a link to it. It's really interesting.

The consumer needs to start protecting themselves. I can see why you feel hard done by, but seriously, you need to pay much more attention to things before you give your card details.

I do feel for you, U really do but it should have been clear to you that it us a private business, just looking at the web address. You can start a business selling tap water and charging for it. No matter how ridiculous it is they are legal and just line any other company they will try to sell the if service by talking in a winded way to confuse but actually telling a well hidden truth.

Glad you're saving money other way though .

I can see that they are legally able to get away with, but it is a hollow sort of person who sets up a business specifically to deceive and overcharge people. I think there is a difference between that and most businesses, DrinkFeckArse, it's not 'just like any other company' obfuscating about what they do. I wonder how they feel when they sit down to work every day to rip people off?

I think there should be a lot more education and awareness-raising generally about the risks of online activity. People get so blasé about it and it always pays to be vigilant about the addresses you go to.

I'm sorry you paid for something you didn't need, and the parking idea seems a positive way to recoup the money. But in regards to who protects the consumer, that's our job, if it's there on the site, contract, sign that the service offered is X not Y we can't expect money back if we put our card details in without reading.

I'm astonished that posters are saying this is not a scam. As is clear from the coverage in the media, large numbers of people are being taken in. The scam companies receive many complaints by people who feel they've been misled, so they know what effect their representation is having in the real world, and their response has been to have their website in a form which they can claim (barely) complies with the law.

The best that can be said is that they misrepresent in a way which isn't clearly illegal in order to fool the unaware.

Well, look at the descriptions of how face creams work. What a load of bull.

That analogy would work better if someone "buys" a container of face cream and on opening the container finds an application form to buy the face cream from someone who actually sells face cream.