VICTORIA BISCHOFF: Google must tackle the copycat scammers

VICTORIA BISCHOFF: Google must tackle the unscrupulous firms taking advantage of its lax advertising rules

Google needs to wake up to the fact that unscrupulous firms are routinely taking advantage of its lax advertising rules.

Time and again we have exposed how copycat scammers use the search engine to trick users into paying more for holiday visas, passports – you name it.

Our City Editor was even caught out when trying to renew his driving licence online.

Time and again we have exposed how copycat scammers use the Google search engine to trick users into paying more for holiday visas, passports – you name it

Scammers are also known to use Google to promote risky or even fraudulent investments.

Now, as we report, drivers are in danger of being left out of pocket if they use the internet giant to search for their insurer’s phone number.

This is because other firms buy advertising terms, such as ‘Ageas + motor’, so they appear at the top of Google’s rankings.

The customers then call who they think is their insurer but end up speaking to someone else.

And it’s clear from the call transcript we detail that whoever is on the end of the phone is intent on preventing the motorist realising their mistake – leaving them liable for all sorts of costs in the future. It’s a dirty tactic that needs to be stamped out.

Google also needs to take responsibility for its role in this. And if it won’t, a regulator must force it.

Power failure

It beggars belief that we could ever have reached a point where dozens of households living in council properties are facing electricity bills of nearly £5,000 a year.

Yet as we reveal, that’s what has happened in a rural community near Falkirk, after their homes were fitted with supposedly ‘eco-friendly’ boilers. Experts say the average family with such a boiler should pay around £800 a year for power.

So it is simply immoral that here we have a group of people paying five times this.

Falkirk Council and Scottish Power have finally announced measures to help these residents — but it doesn’t make up for the anxiety already suffered.

And we have still not got to the bottom of what has gone wrong. These families deserve answers.

Dire deliveries

Your tales of disastrous deliveries continue to pour in. But Money Mail reader Frances Mary-Pratt’s account is perhaps the most ridiculous so far.

She ordered a new dishwasher online which was supposed to be delivered last October.

When it didn’t turn up, Frances, logged on to the courier’s website to track the parcel’s progress, only to discover it had been delivered and signed for . . . by the driver.

It emerged the dishwasher had been left outside the front door in the rain, with no card pushed through the letterbox to alert Frances, who had been in the house the whole time.

She says: ‘The courier claimed that it had been put in a ‘safe’ place, but I think you would agree that putting an item worth more than £200 outside my front door in full view of the main road hardly constitutes a safe place.

‘I knew nothing about the delivery until my husband spotted the dishwasher sitting on the path when he came home from work at the end of that day.

‘Obviously, I complained, but was told that it was standard policy for the driver to sign for the parcel. I just could not believe the excuses I was hearing.’

Keep them coming!

Savings bug

To end, Money Mail reader Tracey, from Worcestershire, offers a wonderful reminder of how saving a little and often really does add up.

She says: ‘Just over one year ago in Money Mail, you suggested the 1p savings challenge, where you started on January 1 by saving 1p, then 2p on January 2 etc.

‘I thought this was a very good idea and did this for a couple of weeks until I realised that I was going to have a mountain of small coins to take to the bank at the end of the year.

‘Instead, I decided to save £2 a day instead — the cost of a cup of coffee. I was therefore delighted to have amassed £730 by December 31 and have just treated myself to a week’s holiday in Cornwall.

‘Thank you for your brilliant suggestion — I have already started saving again for this year.’

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