BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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Mick
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BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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In the UK we get a free drivers licence renewal when we reach the age of 70 then it’s renewed every three years. It’s a way of making sure you’re still capable of driving or haven’t passed on I suppose. Anyway, I got the reminder and the forms for my 70 year olds driving licence and started to do it online twenty minutes ago. I got almost to the end and it asked me for £80 and my card details. “Hang on” I thought, “I’ve read it was free” then I saw a notice in the paperwork:

It’s free to renew your driving licence. DVLA’s official GOV.UK website won’t request a payment from you. You should leave any website that does immediately.

So I went to the proper GOV.UK site manually rather than using the search bar and got through it ok but it’s easy to see if you’re not on the ball how you can get seriously scammed.

The site that tried to scam me was: https://www.vehicleonlineservices.co.uk

The address comes up high on the list even if you type GOV.UK, why are these sites allowed to exist it must be easy to shut them down?

Interesting reading https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/vehicl ... ices.co.uk

Forewarned is forearmed.
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SpIdErPiGgY
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by SpIdErPiGgY »

Read the footer:

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david63
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by david63 »

Mick wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:43 pm why are these sites allowed to exist
Because they are doing nothing wrong - OK morally that are wrong.

Wherever there is an "official" site where you apply for something, free or not, there will be other sites that look almost identical where they claim to be processing the data on your behalf for a fee. Another common one is/was for the EU Health card.
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Mick
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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SpIdErPiGgY wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:26 pm Read the footer
Yeh, I know but many among us (including myself) tend not to read T&C’s especially when you type in “GOV.UK renew 70 year olds licence” and get to a site that is, in actual fact, better than the real thing and looks very legit. There is a “right to cancel” clause which is ignored apparently. I’m just glad I’d read that the official service was free and the bogus site asked me for my card details setting off the alarm bells, I’m sure many won’t be so lucky.
david63 wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:27 pmBecause they are doing nothing wrong - OK morally that are wrong
But impersonating a government body is illegal and I’m not sure dodgy T&C’s would save them if they were dragged out of Estonia and put on trial here. ”Action fraud” should be able to do something, anyway, it’s a warning to others but I suspect many more will fall foul.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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renew.png
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by thecoalman »

My Mother fell for same thing here in US with address change.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”

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Mick
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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Driving licence address changing in the UK is free so any request for money is bogus.

I had a message from a lady yesterday saying they almost caught her out twice last year, one doing something with her tax and the other renewing her TV licence.

If there are any doubts at all do it by post, there’s no issue due to delays because of COVID-19 as the licences overlap and traffic cops know if you’re licence is current anyway.
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    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by thecoalman »

Mick wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 11:39 am Driving licence address changing in the UK is free so any request for money is bogus.
Licenses are issued by states so it's going to vary widely what the costs are. My Mother got caught with a simple address change which is free. You fill out the form and the post office will forward mail to new address for 6 months or whatever it is. Like you she ended up on legitimate looking site which charged her for the service. Technically not illegal but very shady.

She contacted the CC company and they recovered the payment. The larger issue is who she gave her information too.... She ended up with CC charge on a few weeks later she didn't make and had to change the CC account.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by Brf »

We have gotten text messages for license renewal. The first one had a short-form URL which led to an office365.com site. The second led to cyberdrive.illinois.drive.someothersite.com, which is kind of similar to Illinois's cyberdriveillinois.com address. I reported both to the FTC, so hopefully they will be shut down.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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Brad, out of curiosity, can you ascertain the country of origin? The one I reported was based in Estonia.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by thecoalman »

Brf wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:35 pm which is kind of similar to Illinois's cyberdriveillinois.com address.
That's legit but most government websites here in the US have a .gov TLD. I won't use them unless it's .gov or direct link from .gov site as they sometimes use third parties.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by thecoalman »

Mick wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:51 pm Brad, out of curiosity, can you ascertain the country of origin? The one I reported was based in Estonia.
You can do a whois lookup to see where the domain/IP is based.

https://whois.domaintools.com/
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Mick
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

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I know but I don’t have the address the Illinois one pointed to. Mine was already reported on trust pilot.
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    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by Brf »

Mick wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:51 pm Brad, out of curiosity, can you ascertain the country of origin? The one I reported was based in Estonia.
The first address was an office365 url, the second was a weebly address. Both are legit sites which provide simple ways to set up forms. I have gotten fake Emails from Google Forms sites too. Often those email forms are filled with ipsum lorem, which the sender was too ignorant to remove.
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Mick
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Re: BEWARE!! OAP drivers licence renewal scam UK

Post by Mick »

I get lots of emails in my trash from Google Forms, I never knew what they were so ignored them.
  • "The more connected we get the more alone we become" - Kyle Broflovski©
  • "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
    " - Harmony Cobel
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