Sir Oliver Heald MP for North East Hertfordshire is encouraging his constituents to be wary of misleading websites which pertain to be official government websites but actually are third party sites claiming affiliation with the Government and charge a fee for their services or are phishing sites that fraudulently dupe innocent people out of their personal details and money.
The Government is working with the National Trading Standards Board (NTSB) to address this matter and has given an additional £120,000 to the NTSB to help identify those companies behind misleading websites. The NTSB’s online “Owl and the Copycat” campaign seeks to raise awareness about this problem and the consumer goods company Which has issued guidance “How to spot a copycat website” which some might find helpful. Anybody who wishes to report a misleading website can do so by clicking here.
Commenting Sir Oliver said “I appreciate how easy it is for people to go to a copycat website by mistake. However those who wish to visit an official government website are best advised to visit www.gov.uk first and then search for whichever service they require from there.”