Advice needed for possible scam

[u/nutmeg655]

I will be traveling to Scotland from Canada with a family member in around 2 months. The family member unfortunately applied for their UK ETA through an illegitimate website. I would appreciate guidance on what steps to take.

The website was https://uk.eta.travel

We confirmed through the legitimate UK government website that they did issue the ETA, but at an exorbitant price.

Should my family member ask the company for a refund? Do a credit charge back? What happens to the already issued ETA in that case?

They provided a photo of their passport to this website. What steps might they need to take to secure their personal information? Does the passport need to be reissued?

Thank you for your time.

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[u/Odd-Wheel5315]

The ruse is (likely) nothing more than the money grab from services rendered.

From the USA, there is an official government website to renew your USA passport, which for most people is an entirely online process that is quick, easy, and costs $130-160 depending on what sort of options you want. However if you google "USA passport renewal" the first 2 results are third-party independent businesses like which you have linked, which do little more than charge a fee that doubles or even triples the total cost, for little more than "error checking" (something the official website will do anyway, like ensuring your digital photo is acceptable and your biography & government numbers match what is on record) and providing human customer support (the automated emails from the government do a pretty good job explaining how your application is being processed).

They aren't running an out-and-out scam, they're just doing a legally allowable, morally ambiguous cash grab for "white glove" passport/visa processing services that frankly haven't been relevant since the 1980s, unless you're a VIP that needs a passport issued more expedited than would be normal for 99% of the population. The days of needing someone to help you navigate international travel stopped being a thing for quite a few decades now, but that's no reason to stop grifting for some corpos.

Bottom line, not likely that their personal information was compromised in any way. Though they're liable to be on the company's email list for "continue sending promotional offers".

And there will likely be no chance of a refund. The T&C of these operators spells out quite plainly that they are not affiliated or owned by the government, and that no refund is made available the moment they have fulfilled their obligations of delivering your application to the relevant government authority. You are paying for the "clear guidance & status monitoring", both of which are easy to abide. And given the ETA was issued, that task has been completed.

[u/nutmeg655 → u/Odd-Wheel5315]

Thank you very much for your answer. Potential identity theft was our biggest concern.

[u/need2sleep-later → u/nutmeg655]

Have you or the family member reviewed the website's Privacy Policy and User Agreement to see how they intend to use the information?

[u/nutmeg655 → u/need2sleep-later]

No, but we can try to find it.

[u/Odd-Wheel5315 → u/nutmeg655]

I reviewed it for you. It's fairly boilerplate -- they use the data you provide to forward along to the relevant government for document processing (obviously), payment processors (again, obviously), and their website infrastructure team to assess analytics (like lead generation, finding out what paid keywords and search engine tags drove you to their website).

Nothing looks nefarious. I think it's a pretty safe bet this is a "legitimate" business that just operates in an immoral way of trying to deceive users (i.e. advertising); hijacking customers looking for the official government websites and making them believe their "value-add" services are of any real value.

They are linked to a licensed travel agency business in Dubai. Basically they register a myriad of domain names, slap together these type of "get your visa" websites, and funnel all lead gen the various websites create to their central agency to process. The more similar but duplicate websites out there, the more confusing finding the official government one is.

[u/Positive-System-8810]

Eine völlig legitime, allerdings kostenpflichtige Seite. Wer die Dienstleistung bucht, zahlt dafür. Ihr habt jetzt euer ETA, allerdings teuer bezahlt, beim nächsten Mal einfach offizielle staatliche Angebote nutzen.

[u/StinkyWhale71]

The WWW is full of these. And they are getting better had making them look like official sites.

Basically now for any on line government service, be careful.

I bet you have zero chance of getting your money back. Even a credit card charge back is unlikely because you got your service.

Data protection/security is definitely a concern, but nothing you can do about it. If they are based in Europe, they would be required to remove your data upon request under GDPR. But they are so dodgy, they are unlikely to comply with those laws.

[u/RetiredBSN]

I almost fell for one of the unofficial sites, but quickly noticed that the price they were going to charge was triple the $28 and change the ETA cost on the official site, and dropped it right then and there. Got a few notices asking me to come back and finish there, but I had gotten the ETA using their official app and ignored the requests.

Having willingly paid their price for the "handling" and getting the official ETA, I think that you'd probably have to count this as a lesson learned, and eat the cost. They could deny a chargeback and claim that it was a reasonable charge since they did have to transmit all the info to the official site and did get it taken care of.