11.03.2025 - Last week we received a report about what appeared to be a dodgy car owner enquiry website – but a check of the website revealed no irregularities and we found the site to be legitimate. However, the person who submitted the report did incur unwanted costs.
Subscribed after car owner query
Last week we received a report about what appeared to be a dubious car owner enquiry website. The complainant had damaged his car and wanted to find the owner of the other vehicle. He searched the internet for information and came across a website with instructions. The website seemed trustworthy and clear. Below the instructions on how to find the owner, there was a large green Continue button.
When he clicked on the button, another page opened asking him to enter his phone number – which he did, believing it to be a necessary step in the process. It wasn’t until later that he became suspicious. His suspicions were confirmed after a few days, when he noticed an unusual charge of CHF 15 on his phone bill.
The site is legitimate, but what about the ads?
We initially assumed that the complainant had visited a scam website, but our investigation revealed that the site is in fact legitimate, and has been around for over ten years. There was no suspicious content and the website provided correct information on how to obtain information on a car’s owner in each canton. So how had the reported incident happened? Our suspicion fell on the dynamically displayed content: advertising.
Many website owners offer advertising space to third party advertisers as a way of funding their websites. On the website in question, information on how to perform a car owner query was in some cases followed by an advertisement with the buttons Continue, Activate, Access and another, larger, Continue button. At first glance, a website visitor might think that in order to carry out their query, they need to click on this big Continue button.
Clicking the Continue button redirects you to a new page, where you are asked to enter your phone number. In small print that is easy to miss, it says ‘CHF 15 per week’. When you enter your number, instead of getting the information you are looking for, you are inadvertently subscribing to some kind of service.
Scam ads are common
We often see online adverts that are designed to fit seamlessly into the official content of a website, confusing visitors. For example, on websites where you can download documents, this type of fraudulent ad is sometimes placed more prominently than the actual download link. This confuses visitors and tricks them into downloading the wrong thing.
Another type of scam that has been reported to us involves fraudulent ads on free QR code scanners. Again, the ad (the green Start button in the example below) is easily mistaken for the official link. If you’re in a hurry and don't look at the page carefully, you're likely to click on the most prominent button. Here, too, the bogus link leads to a subscription. We have reported on this type of scam before.
Recommendations
- How you can protect yourself
- Check websites carefully and be particularly suspicious if the style and content suddenly change.
- Be particularly careful if you are asked to enter your phone number or credit card details. Before you share this kind of information, make sure you are still on the correct website.
- For website owners: If you are able to control where ads are placed on your site, you should make sure that it is not confusing to your visitors. The risk of confusion is particularly high when ads are placed in the body text.The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) recommends sending a registered letter to the provider immediately after discovering the error, in which you challenge the contract on the grounds of error and fraudulent misrepresentation. The letter should contain at least the following: ‘I have been misled by your website. I therefore contest the contract concluded on the grounds of mistaken consent and intent to mislead. The contract is therefore null and void.’
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Last modification 11.03.2025
