It's an excessively common scam nowadays that everybody is requiring an eVisa or electronic travel notice.
Fun story:
Once I was traveling to a country X that I was familiar enough with to know that thir governmental services web sites were awfully designed. We're talking about web design that would easily put Geocities to shame.
They had recently introduced an eVisa scheme that I have to complete.
Out of tirednes and being in a rush, I clicked at the wrong link. It gets me into a shiny, modern web page with nice graphics and a form to complete.
I instinctively think "WAIT! This is TOO nice for an official site!".
Then I look at the address bar, see an obvious scam-SEO URL, realize my mistake, and go back to search for the real one.
Which was as terribly designed as expected.
neom · 32m ago
I hear about this repeatedly with South Korea - just googled and sure enough the first result is a sponsored scam site.
BLKNSLVR · 6m ago
I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site.
I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control.
Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).
postepowanieadm · 53m ago
There's a strange (for someone from Eastern Europe) zone around public services where shady individual thrive: like buying vignettes - you may buy "directly" from the state (nemzetiutdij.hu, eznamka.sk, edalnice.cz) or by some middleman that brings nothing to the process but has a ~20% commission.
delusional · 10m ago
Isn't this abuse of the chargeback system? I was under the impression that chargebacks were for resolving otherwise unresolvable conflicts between the buyer and seller. Here the buyer didn't even attempt to get a refund from the seller before the chargeback.
aredox · 13m ago
This scam is everywhere: set up a website to "middleman" yourself into the application process of any online permit/certificate/authorization, make it look as similar to an official website as possible, game up your way to first place in search results through SEO, profit.
rgovostes · 1h ago
I wonder how many people have paid for International Drivers Permits from scam websites. In the US these are only issued by AAA, and until recently they were only available by mail or in person, creating an opening for grifters to sell print-at-home PDFs.
(The concept seems outdated, and I've successfully rented cars abroad without an IDP at all. Also, isn't it weird that authority to issue these is delegated to AAA, and them only?)
lmm · 43m ago
IDPs are still very much useful and needed - short of the world agreeing on a single standard for what a driving license should look like, they're a lot more practical than expecting everyone to understand 192 different formats (and a few crazy countries like the USA even issue dozens of different license formats within the country). Delegating it to some random driving-related third party is slightly weird but not that weird (in my country they're done by the Post Office, which is arguably weirder, but I guess they also handle passport applications so it makes a certain amount of sense from that perspective).
YZF · 12m ago
There are many countries where just having a standard-ish license with English is perfectly fine. I think last time we had a thread on this topic someone mentioned a few countries where that wasn't true but most of Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, (edit: UK), and a bunch of other countries will just take your local plastic license as long as it has English on it.
portaouflop · 7m ago
There are many countries outside of the Anglosphere though…
Fun story:
Once I was traveling to a country X that I was familiar enough with to know that thir governmental services web sites were awfully designed. We're talking about web design that would easily put Geocities to shame.
They had recently introduced an eVisa scheme that I have to complete.
Out of tirednes and being in a rush, I clicked at the wrong link. It gets me into a shiny, modern web page with nice graphics and a form to complete.
I instinctively think "WAIT! This is TOO nice for an official site!".
Then I look at the address bar, see an obvious scam-SEO URL, realize my mistake, and go back to search for the real one.
Which was as terribly designed as expected.
I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control.
Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).
(The concept seems outdated, and I've successfully rented cars abroad without an IDP at all. Also, isn't it weird that authority to issue these is delegated to AAA, and them only?)