A MUM received a £90 Ulez fine after being duped by a scam site when she took her two-year-old son to hospital.
Dog-groomer Emily Cook, 41, paid the clean-air driving tax to the dummy site instead of Transport for London.
Simon JonesEmily Cook received a £90 Ulez fine after being scammed by a fraud site when she took her ill son to hospital[/caption]
TfL refused to let her off the late payment penalty — instead of charging the £12.50 Ulez fee.
But it relented when The Sun stepped in.
Emily, 41, of Little Bedwyn, Wilts, drives to St Thomas’ Hospital in central London twice a year for her son’s treatment.
She said: “How was I supposed to know when it was the first link that popped up on Google above the real TfL page.”
TfL said in a statement: “It is unacceptable that scammers are seeking to take advantage of people in this way. TfL is working closely with the search operators, advertising standards and trading standards to try and remove these websites urgently.
“Where scammers have taken advantage of people and a fine has been issued, we urge them to let us know. We are sorry Ms Cook has had this experience and we have cancelled her fine.”
The controversial ULEZ zone – which was expanded beyond central London on August 29 – has been targeted by scammers since it was first introduced.
Review platform Trustpilot shows the dummy site which tricked Cook has had at least 31 people fall for its scam going back to 2022.
One user wrote: “Fake company pretending to pay the ULEZ charge.
“Reading from other people’s experiences I am in utter shock that TFL are allowing this to happen and not doing anything to help customers who have genuinely paid the fine to a SCAM company.”
David Kenna, another victim of the ULEZ scam, told the BBC: “The thing that annoyed us particularly was TfL had no sympathy whatsoever. They couldn’t give a monkeys, basically.
“Nobody ever contacted us to ask about this scamming site.”