Car licence renewal fraud from licence assist

[gun12b]

Unfortunately I fell victim to the scam when renewing my driving licence, initially charged £24 which was refunded by my bank and then they took another £89 which I am still waiting to be refunded
Make sure you use the official .GOV website and don’t fall for this company

[Driver101]

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

[Getragdogleg]

Driver101 said:

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

Because sometimes it is at the top of Google and looks like its the real site.

I am careful as hell but ended up on it once.

[Super Sonic]

Driver101 said:

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

Op is trying to help everyone by warning them. Criticism is undeserved and unhelpful.

[Driver101]

Getragdogleg said:

Driver101 said:

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

Because sometimes it is at the top of Google and looks like its the real site.

I am careful as hell but ended up on it once.

It looks nothing like the DVLA site on my phone.

There is also a big banner at the top of the screen telling you it's a third party company and charges you for things that are free through the DVLA.

They even have a chart showing their prices v the DVLA prices.

Edited by Driver101 on Friday 10th March 19:04

[Scrump]

My parents often seem to fall for this type of scam where they search for DVLA or HMRC etc and then just choose the first Google search listing

I have managed to educate them enough so that they do now call me to check before entering any credit card details.

[Getragdogleg]

Driver101 said:

Getragdogleg said:

Driver101 said:

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

Because sometimes it is at the top of Google and looks like its the real site.

I am careful as hell but ended up on it once.

It looks nothing like the DVLA site on my phone.

There is also a big banner at the top of the screen telling you it's a third party company and charges you for things that are free through the DVLA.

They even have a chart showing their prices v the DVLA prices.

Edited by Driver101 on Friday 10th March 19:04

Good for you. You don't need the advice the op is giving out. I don't it either but some people do, this is for them. Not you obviously.

[Bennet]

Driver101 said:

Getragdogleg said:

Driver101 said:

Why would you go anywhere other than the DVLA when renewing your driving licence?

Because sometimes it is at the top of Google and looks like its the real site.

I am careful as hell but ended up on it once.

It looks nothing like the DVLA site on my phone.

There is also a big banner at the top of the screen telling you it's a third party company and charges you for things that are free through the DVLA.

They even have a chart showing their prices v the DVLA prices.

Edited by Driver101 on Friday 10th March 19:04

Not sure what you're looking at but the top results for "Driving License Renewal" on both my phone and PC are definitely intended to resemble a typical .gov.uk site, and the banner you mention is deliberately designed to be easy to scroll past. It's not an outright scam in the worst sense, but it's deliberately preying on people's inattention or general vulnerability and should be shut down.

[Riley Blue]

Bennet said:

Not sure what you're looking at but the top results for "Driving License Renewal" on both my phone and PC are definitely intended to resemble a typical .gov.uk site, and the banner you mention is deliberately designed to be easy to scroll past. It's not an outright scam in the worst sense, but it's deliberately preying on people's inattention or general vulnerability and should be shut down.

That's odd as I just Googled "Driving Licence Renewal" on my phone and the first four results all link to .gov.uk whereas if I do the same search on my laptop the first and third link to the dodgy sites which to my eyes look very different from the official gov.uk one.

ETA: I've found that mis-spelling licence as license pushes the bogus sites up the results.

Edited by Riley Blue on Saturday 11th March 06:53

[Sheepshanks]

I've never heard of this happening before with driving licences, but it's very common with POAs and ESTAs,

[Monster Mash]

I’ve heard about similar sites offering vehicle road tax services, they basically tax your vehicle on your behalf for a fee

[Pica-Pica]

Riley Blue said:

That's odd as I just Googled "Driving Licence Renewal" on my phone and the first four results all link to .gov.uk whereas if I do the same search on my laptop the first and third link to the dodgy sites which to my eyes look very different from the official gov.uk one.

ETA: I've found that mis-spelling licence as license pushes the bogus sites up the results.

Edited by Riley Blue on Saturday 11th March 06:53

Yes, and judging by some other posters on here, Pistonheads is a bogus site too!

[Austin_Metro]

I renewed mine last week. On the gov site. But after this thread I looked at the other sponsored links (official was fourth sponsored on my laptop via google).

The general get up of the third party one I looked at was similar to govt style and it is deigned not to tell you that after 3 days it’s £89 every three months for some services which you may conclude aren’t that valuable.