The ASA has slammed Book Your Practical Test Online Ltd for the second time in less than 6 months. You may remember I reported on another of their adjudications in January this year. That last one was following deliberate attempts to look exactly like the old DirectGov booking site.
This time they have been pulled up over claims that they are “the fastest” and “the easiest” way to book your test online. Both claims were total bollocks even before ASA got on to the case. This time, Book Your Practical Test Online Ltd appears not even to have responded to the ASA to try and defend themselves, and ASA has concluded the same as me – that the claims are total bollocks (though not in those same words, of course).
I have a very low opinion of these scam artists. The only reason they get away with it is because English Law doesn’t have any balls, but plenty of loopholes for these bottom feeders to play with. They should not be doing this at all. It doesn’t matter that you include in your small print all sorts of disclaimers when you are purposely trying to mislead people with the big print and make them spend more than they need to by pretending you’re something you’re not.
Recently, two of my pupils have got caught in the web. Neither was aware that they were not booking directly with the DSA – and that’s where my argument comes into play. Book Your Practical Test Online Ltd knows full well that most people will fall into this category, and their previous deliberate attempts to mimic the DSA’s own website prove that beyond doubt. Let’s face facts here: no one in their right mind is going to pay £82 when they could be paying £62 with the DSA.
One pupil (around Christmas) had booked her test, and she phoned me to say that they’d told her they would get back to her when the test was booked! Alarm bells went off, and I immediately asked how much she’d paid. When she told me (£20 more than the DSA price) I informed her she had used a scam site. Fortunately, they’re not such big scammers that they won’t refund people’s money – they’d be shut down and prosecuted if they did that – and she got her money back and booked properly.
The second pupil tried to book her test a few weeks ago. She told me she couldn’t get online to book, as it wasn’t showing any free dates. Initially, I said the system must be down and to try the next day. But when she phoned me again because it was still not working properly, she added “and it’s more expensive than last time”. Again, alarm bells rang and it was confirmed she’d been sucked in by them.
These sorts of scammers deliberately engineer it so they come up in Google searches where they shouldn’t. And they have sponsored links in Google which means they guarantee themselves a prime place on any search to do with test booking. Even if you use “DSA” in your search, they still come up – indeed, adding “DSA” brings some of them higher up the normal search results, so it is clear what they are up to.
I should point out that anyone using Book Your Practical Test Online Ltd probably will get a test (I can’t comment on the others, though some will just take your money and run because they’re not even based in the UK). But people are unwittingly paying extra for something they didn’t want, ask for, or need, and they may get the run-around as a result. And that’s what makes it a scam.
It’s good to see that the DSA is using ASA to attack these scumbags.
Remember: to book your driving test, go to the DSA site. Do not use any other site.