Why, readers ask, is the government letting commercial websites prey on the unwary when they renew their passports, apply for a driving licence or even obtain a death certificate? As our story highlights, thousands upon thousands of people are paying wholly unnecessary fees to access basic services provided by the government.
But demanding action, while understandable, is the wrong approach. The right question is why search engine providers, principally Google, both facilitate and profit from what, most would agree, is a cynical, although sadly legal, exploitation of the public?
Today we launch our "Stop these sites" campaign. The government could, one supposes, draft legislation to protect consumers. But it would be a laborious process, and hardly one that would be high up the legislative agenda. But there is a simple solution, one that could be enacted tomorrow. All Google has to do is to switch off its AdWords system when it comes to basic public services. With no promotion, the sites would perish overnight.
If you're unfamiliar with AdWords, it's how Google lets commercial organisations buy words, such as "birth certificate". If you enter that as a search, that company's site comes top of the results, in the yellow box at the top of the page. The official government site, with the official price, comes further down the page.
To be fair to Google, it tells us it monitors these sites and where it discovers abuses it takes action. But this is a classic corporate response which, on examination, doesn't really stand up. It took us milliseconds (yes, Google is admirably speedy at producing search results) to find a site in breach of Google's rules.
Why can't it monitor the sites more proactively, rather than rely on people who have been tricked to write to a newspaper, then for us to pass it on? Perhaps Google is too preoccupied devising ways to reduce its tax bill.
As part of our campaign, we'd like readers to help the multinational giant to do its job. We'd like you to send us stories of your experience using these sites. Were there warnings, prominently and clearly stated, that they were not the official provider?
Was it made explicit that you would be paying charges on top of the official government cost (which in the case of Ehic cards, for example, is zero)?
The websites tell us they are providing a customer service, that they are "third party processors" which help consumers fill in forms and check applications. But this is a real hoot. One colleague who fell foul of one of these sites found that not only had she paid over the odds, it actually introduced errors into the application form before passing it on to the government body.
Some might argue this should be a case of "caveat emptor". Others will dismiss victims as "muppets" or "numpties" (the preferred terms of abuse in below-the-line comments) for falling for this lark. After all, these sites have giveaway clues that tell you, without clicking in, that there's something fishy. For example, the domain names they inhabit are of the cheapo .uk, .net or .gb type rather than .gov.
But it's easy to poke fun at the unfortunate. Go ahead, laugh at pensioners who are now deeply worried their summer holiday will have to be cancelled after using one of the passport sites. Laugh at the fact that single parent mums, acting in haste, have squandered their money to line the pockets of these site operators.
How much better it would be if the search engines simply switched off the oxygen supply. I keep mentioning Google, when there are, of course, other search engines. But the reality is that it is by far the dominant player and needs to take the lead.
Last year, under pressure, it did halt sites that were conning people into ringing a premium rate line rather than the real NHS Direct line. Now let's pressure it into halting these sites too.
Tell us your experience at money@guardian.co.uk
