THREE websites masquerading as official channels for health insurance cards, birth certificates and passports have been banned in a crackdown by the advertising watchdog.
The "copycat" websites - euro peanhealthcard.org.uk, uk- officialservices.co.uk and ukpass portoffices.co.uk - all misled consumers into thinking they were the official provider of the services they were offering, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.
They have all been banned in their current form, with the ASA ordering that future versions must include prominent disclaimers explaining that they are not the official channels and more details about additional costs.
The ASA said it had received large numbers of complaints from consumers about websites that offered access to online government services, but which were not the official channels and often charged a premium for their service. It said that following research about the public's experience of "copycat" websites in July, it made the decision to conduct several investigations to establish a clear position on how such sites should present their services to avoid misleading consumers.
The ASA said the european healthcard.org.uk website charged for their application verification service, and the EHIC was available free when applied for via the official gov.uk website. It understood the uk-official services.co.uk website enabled users to obtain birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership and death certificates - but was not the official government channel.
It also charged a premium for the service, and the ASA said consumers were likely to infer that a website which enabled them to obtain government-issued certificates was official, unless it was otherwise made clear.
The ukpassportoffices.co.uk website charged for their application verification service, and their fees did not include the fee charged by HM Passport Office, which consumers would still be required to pay.
The ASA said: "Because the website did not make it sufficiently clear it was not the official website to obtain a passport, we concluded it was misleading.
"We also concluded the website was misleading because it did not make clear that the fee charged by the advertiser was a service charge only, and that an additional fee was payable to HMPO to obtain a passport."
Regarding europeanhealth card.org.uk, the ASA said: "We considered that many consumers would not be aware that the EHIC could be obtained for free from the NHS. It was therefore important that the European EHIC Services website made clear that they charged a premium for their commercial application verification service, and that the EHIC could be obtained for free from the NHS."
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