Recently fell for an obvious and known scam website that positions itself as a legitimate way for applying for Canada Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA, requirement for Visa exhempt travelers to Canada). The website is the first result that comes up when you search for Canada ETA in google. Ends up charging you 85$ which I now realize is a 7$ service.
Is there any way for us to report known scams and Monzo would then prevent other Monzo clients from falling for the same scam? Perhaps an alert that this is a possible scam?
The payment went through without even asking my app to confirm/approve.
Tried contacting Monzo chat, but they gave me the boiler plate response of trying to get a refund from the vendor first. Slim chance of that happening.
tbutz
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I would imagine the issue with this is that it then becomes a problem for Monzo to maintain a list of scam websites.
What happens if Monzo block a legitimate transaction due to people reporting something incorrectly/maliciously?
I like the idea but imagine it will be hard to police
Not wanting to upset you further but from what youâve described I wouldnât call it a scam, just a business with a very high markup on a service.
I was ripped off by British Gas, they wrongfully billed me ÂŁ2,000 so I would claim that theyâre scammers too. Millions of others would say otherwise though and this is where it becomes hard to draw lines.
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tbutz
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Perhaps it is for Google to flag things? Even if itâs a marker that says âwe have had numerous reports of possible scam activityâ or the likes and then itâs caveat emptor from that point?
I was thinking this. Iâve not used a service like this but have heard of people using âfirst results in Googleâ and paying WAY over the odds for Visas and such.
To that end, is it really a scam? If theyâre telling you what youâll get and the price youâll pay surely a little responsibility is on the customer too?
Itâs frustrating and I feel for you OP but, like others have mentioned, this will be hard to police and would likely take up so much resource.
Not to mention that the actual scammers probably switch accounts around quite quick so cat and mouse would be endless.
tbutz
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Iâve just done a search and there were 2 sites on page 1 of google that I would identify as being ânot officialâ. Just looking at the website address would tip you off, especially as the official website canada.ca is listed nearby. The real giveaway is the cost. On the official website itâs very simple to see that it costs CAD $7, itâs there in black and white. On the not-legitimate sites, one had the cost hidden away (CAD $85), the other I couldnât find mention whatsoever.
What worries me more about this is that you have to provide a lot of detail including names and passports and travel details and who knows what, thatâs not something you want some dodgy website to have access to, even if the website is simply a robot that repackages the data and sends it to the official website automatically (and pockets the $ difference). Iâd be much more worried about that, than paying over the odds.
I understand what you guys are all saying. I accept that I fell for it and should have checked further before paying, but it is frustrating to know others will continue to fall for this and there is nothing we can do to help.
The website is worded very carefully so it is not technically criminal, but a very intelligent scam nonetheless since they donât do anything more than forward your application to the official website and pocket your money.
Would be nice if I could mark the transaction as suspicious in Monzo and then if a number of people repeatedly do that Monzo can then alert people before the transaction is allowed to go through. You can still ignore the alert and authorise the payment if you donât agree it is suspicious. If enough people do that Monzo can then take it off the alert list. Automated crowd sourced process with no need for policing .
Itâs. Not. A. Scam. It was an expensive service.
Itâs not Monzoâs job to tell you how to spend your money.
Monzo wonât know youâve paid for the expensive service until youâve actually paid for it, so Monzo canât warn you in time. And itâs not Monzoâs job. And itâs not a scam.
Not for âscamsâ, per se, but for merchants that have been reported/cautioned against extensively by members.
A user could have a âwarn on negative reviewsâ setting turned out, which declines any payments which hit a certain threshold. Attempting to make a payment could trigger an app notification They could turn it off/on, and choose âignore warning for this merchantâ â which then lets subsequent payment attempts go through.
No policing required. Kinda like an eBay rating system - crowdsourced / community driven.
Itâs alright saying âuse your brainâ, but not every complaint falls neatly into the camp of âscamâ - it might just be that a merchant has notoriously poor delivery, crappy CS, or some other issue that is hard to gauge without others already being burned.
Relatively simple feature to implement and useful as a secondary guard after common sense.
A site buying a Google advert to appear at the top of the results page and thus trick people into paying for a âserviceâ they donât need? Thatâs a scam.
Google block millions of such adverts each year, the problem is they canât always block them pre-emptively, and the scam sites are always re-rolling, so there will always be a small proportion of people who will see and potentially fall for the ads.
This is why I always tell people to scroll past the ad results and look for the first âproperâ result, and/or use an adblocker, or use Duckduckgo.
Problem is reviews can be gamed. Iâve seen products on Amazon get one star because it arrived a day late ffs.
At some point, as a buyer, you have to engage your brain and do your own research. You canât float through life clicking on stuff because it appears at the top of Google, or because Monzo says its OK, or whatever.
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tbutz
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I have a business selling widgets. My nearest competitor is a ruthless fellow with many dodgy connections who tasks his extensive network of naughty types to report my business. Suddenly Iâm selling no widgets but I donât know why.
Or your great-granddad gets their widget, writes âGreat productâ in the review box, and gives it one star.
Or on the other end of the scale, sellers who include postcards in with their product saying âWrite a 5* review and weâll give you your money backâ, where the product is invariably a shitty knock-off from a cheap Chinese factory.
Aside from the fact that the OP wasnât scammed (unless they paid that money and didnât receive the service offered mind you!) I donât see anyway of any bank being the arbiter of something like this, nor wanting to be. The onus needs to remain with the customer, or very quickly banks would be swamped with requests against âscammersâ that are nothing of the sort (I hate to say it, but the OP would fall into this category, sorry about that!).
