Five people have been arrested for allegedly running ‘copycat’ websites which mimicked official UK government’s sites and conned the public.
The websites let people order official documents but charged for what was often available for free from the government. If there was a charge, the websites added a “service fee” on top.
The fake sites are designed well enough to appear official or at least linked to a government department.
More than 5,000 complaints about copycat websites were made to Citizens Advice last year and 700 were made to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The most common complaints involved passports, driving licences, tax returns, and EHICs (European Health Insurance Card).
The UK government has launched an awareness campaign to warn people about copycat websites which often use URLs that include fragments such as 'govuk', 'directgov' or relevant organisation names.
The National Trading Standards Board (NTSB) said: " Only use the GOV.UK website to find Government services. If you come across copycat websites, report them to Citizens Advice."
Comments
The problem is surely primarily with scammers faking the documents .... and presumably GCHQ therefore wants to trace who gets what from these websites.
Otherwise it would not take more than an afternoon for anything with govuk; direct gov etc to be shut down.