I’m currently kicking myself for my total stupidity...... I had to declare my bike as SORN - the first time I have ever done this. I Googled “declaring SORN” and followed the website which came up, filling in all the details asked for. After completing the form I chose the ‘standard’ rather then the “express” service and paid my £25. Job done I thought. About 5 minutes later I realised that I had fallen for the con trick where you follow the top result in the Google search and end up paying an agency to register your bike as SORN when you can do it directly with the DVLA for free! I’m not sure which is more annoying - the fact that companies are allowed to con you this way or the fact that I was stupid enough to fall for it. If you’re about to register your bike as SORN, please don’t fall for this trick as I did.
Really sorry to hear, it could happen to any of us when guard is down. If it's any consolation I know a beak who fell for the "your computer is infected" trick, including paying quite a lot of money to the scammer to fix it..
I may have got away with this. I just got an email saying my application has been rejected because the ref.no. I used is invalid. I will be checking my credit card statement very closely however. No more Stella Artois for me tonight - not when I’m on the internet at least.
If you paid on c/card then you're covered, as they have told you in writing that they have not sorned your vehicle. Cant charge for something they haven't done, if they do just claim back off c/card company.
They do it for checking MOT & tax details to. Just double check it’s a .gov site you’re logging into.
Wife’s pal lives in Kew and rarely drives into town but had to go in so paid the charge via a very official looking site. She got fined for not paying the charge as well as the money she paid to the scammers.
I nearly got caught myself after declaring SORN on my bike about a week back. Fortunately, I realised it wasn't an official government site, no doubt it may have been the same site that you may have been drawn to, they wanted £30 or £40 for express SORN. Easily done though, I was in a hurry and almost fell into the trap.
Thanks for the warning , and good that they didn't snatch your money ! On a related topic - the European Health Card There's a similar bunch of low-life scamsters pulling the same stunt with the EHIC health travel scheme . I think it's the NHS who issue it , but the official site is not at the top of the google search results . It's free for everyone .... Do Not Pay !
I got stung with this recently with a license renewal. They too 79 quid off me on a website that is exactly the same as the DVLA site. It wasn't until I had paid that I realized that it wasn't the GOV site. I contacted the company and told them that they'd misled me and fortunately they refunded me without any hassle. Well worth watching out for though and easily done.
Named and shamed on TV last week had a feature on trading standards and the Police taking down one of the companies doing this. The people running the scam made millions. They also paid millions to keep their site at the top of the search results.
Doesn't matter which way I phrase it, the Gov.UK site always come out top and about 3 or 4 results after that for good measure.
There you go . That pretty much says it all about these rackets . They are just this side of being legal ..... they're not fraudulently representing themselves as official agents of government departments , but only by a whisker. People in a hurry , or just plain lazy , are going to click on the first in the list from the google search ( and being in that top spot costs money ! ) Worse still , they are getting valuable personal data from everybody who contacts them . These are the very type of cowboys who should not have peoples details !
It was illegal. It was a man and wife team he got quite a long sentence. Plus confiscation proceedings to recover a few million quid
