No fool like an old fool

[dickm]

I'd always thought I was reasonably internet savvy, but got caught a couple of days ago when trying to renew my EHIC. Used a site called EHICuk, which purports to take you to the proper NHS site, but doesn't. Has cost me £49 for the privilege, which is almost certainly gone for ever, but it also looks from researching that the site may be worse than just a simple moneyraising scam and they now have rather too many of my personal details.
OK, I was stupid, BUT, two things of note. One, Government are claiming that they have taken action to stop these sites; they haven't. Two, when I did a search on this forum to see what might have been mentione about EHIC, the first two examples were advertisements for the scammers, with EHICuk first in the line.
I know Charlie et al have to gain some income to run this site, but PLEASE can they check before allowing this sort of thing through.

 

[CHJ]

....
I know Charlie et al have to gain some income to run this site, but PLEASE can they check before allowing this sort of thing through.

Afraid there is nothing to be done about those adds, as the Box they appear in says:- Ads by Google

It's impossible to foretell which sites Google may serve up that may be scammers, even if it was possible, trying to alter the forum coding every day/hour to try and block them would be an impossible task, that particular area of search results is just the same as a vanilla Google search.

 

[Steve Maskery]

A friend of mine needed a visa for the USA. The price is $14, about a tenner. She went through a site which charged her $140, about a hundred quid, and as she paid with a debit card there was not a cat in hell's chance of getting her money back. She didn't know what the price should be and didn't realise that she could even be scammed. Lovely lady, rather niaive, unfortunately.

 

[AndyT]

Dick, Thanks for sharing your experience to make us all wiser!

I know that it's become normal for many people to start anything online by Googling, and remembering a url can seem as old fashioned as learning a friend's phone number, but it really is worth remembering that for anything remotely governmental, the simple five letters of gov.uk are all you need. Once safely on there, a couple of clicks into the Travel section brings up the proper site, as does a search for EHIC within the gov.uk site.

It even helps with the rules on US visas.

 

[doorframe]

Dick. Use Chrome and any of the free ad blockers. There will be no more ads on this site. Bit late now though.

 

[Harbo]

I thought you didn't need a Visa to enter the USA - only an ESTA?

Rod

 

[Steve Maskery]

Yes, that is what I meant. I still think of it as a visa though.

 

[mseries]

Dick. Use Chrome and any of the free ad blockers. There will be no more ads on this site. Bit late now though.

or Firefox or Pale Moon or Opera if you prefer to avoid Google

 

[Harbo]

Yes Steve a Visa in disguise - another way to screw some money out of us!

Rod

 

[dickm]

Dick, Thanks for sharing your experience to make us all wiser!

I know that it's become normal for many people to start anything online by Googling, and remembering a url can seem as old fashioned as learning a friend's phone number, but it really is worth remembering that for anything remotely governmental, the simple five letters of gov.uk are all you need. Once safely on there, a couple of clicks into the Travel section brings up the proper site, as does a search for EHIC within the gov.uk site.

Yes, Andy, I knew that! But STILL fell for it while in a hurry. Does make me wonder about the onset of dementia......................

Must set up ad blocking on Firefox - thanks folks for that tip.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

No, it is an easy mistake to make.

I used the Dartford crossing shortly after they removed the toll booths. Went to the website from memory. Later that evening talking to friends someome commented that there were fraudulent fake websites for that one too, and I got a bit worried. I said I hoped I hadn't fallen for one of them, and that it looked a bit amateur. That'll be the genuine site then, he said - the fake ones look much more professional :lol: Of course, he was right.

 

[finneyb]

And the next scam will be the new requirement, started yesterday, to have a DVLC code to rent a hire car.
As I understand it these are freely available from the DVLC website, when it not overloaded, and valid for only 72 hrs.

Brian

 

[John Brown]

I stupidly fell for a fake ESTA site a couple of years back. In my defence I have to say that it was late at night and I was leaving in the morning and suddenly remembered that ny ESTA might have expired. Anyway, I forked out an unnecessary $80 dollars.
The good part of this story is that I paid with PayPal, and, after much complaining, they refunded my money.

 

[rafezetter]

DickM, it might still be worth trying your bank, especially if you have since paid the same money to the correct website, because a bank may well be able to tell the difference where the money went in a way not so obvious to an online statement.

If you tell them what happened and possibly showed them a printout of the payment notification email from the genuine site, you might be able to get the money back as a fraudulent transaction.

You might have to push fairly hard as they might argue that it was your fault for not being so vigilant, but these happen so often now you might get lucky. A partially raised voice and a crowded bank with words like "I've been a loyal customer for years etc etc ", "so you're not going to help me because I got scammed", also help .

 

[Phil Pascoe]

"I've been a loyal customer for years etc etc ",
You seriously think that'll work in a bank? Loyalty isn't in their vocabulary. Swmbo worked for the largest one and she got her thirty year award and her redundancy in the same post. (Fortunately she fell into a better job with one of her ex bosses.)