Long story short (ish), I stupidly fell for a scam site when I thought was paying the Clean Air charge for Bristol city centre. DH was driving, I was frantically trying to find where the address we needed to get to had said to park (DH getting stressed) and we'd forgotten about the ulez. I was pretty sure we didn't have to pay, but the website said £14 so I paid it rather than risk a fine.
Realised hours later it was a scam, a 'sponsored' site that appears above the official GOV one on Google (which confirmed I shouldn't have had to pay). I phoned the bank but there's little they can do, although they did stop my card as I was worried I'd given all my details on the rogue site. I'm still really concerned about the info they now have. 😳
I feel so stupid, I should have known better. Some time ago I remember DH almost getting caught in something like this with an official looking copycat site above the GOV one on a Google search, (thankfully I realised in time), and another young close relative of mine was similarly caught and lost several hundred pounds.
My question is, surely there could be legislation or better control over these sites so they can't be the first results of a Google search, above the official GOV sites? Maybe I'm naive (I'm certainly starting to feel it) but is there nothing the government can do to ensure their site is always the top result or clamp down on copycat names, etc?