Around 1,000 road users a day have been paying up to £8 extra for non-existent ‘additional services’ on unofficial congestion charge websites.
Transport for London (TfL) has provided further guidance to enable Google to implement its advertising policy in this area, specifically against those who breach its strict ‘sale of free items’ policy by claiming to offering additional services which the official site offers for nothing.
There have also been a number of cases where these unofficial sites have failed to pay the Congestion Charge on behalf of their customers resulting in fines. Some of these unofficial sites have also accepted payments from customers outside of the 07:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday charging times.
Garrett Emmerson, TfL’s Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport, said, ‘We have taken further action with Google which means the removal of misleading advertisements for congestion charge payments from Google.
`This has radically reduced the number of customers who have fallen victim to exorbitant fees for so-called additional services that either don’t exist or are already provided by TfL for free.
`Our advice remains that customers should only ever use our official website to pay the Congestion Charge.’
Theo Bertram, Head of Policy, Google UK, said, `We have always had a strict set of policies which govern what types of ads appear on Google and when we are notified that an advertiser is breaching those policies, we move swiftly to take action.
`Thanks to the further guidance provided by TfL, it is now easier to ensure London’s motorists are protected from misleading sites.’
