Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
Beware This Passport Renewal Scam
Joining us is Michelle Ronan from DatCap, our consumer expert. And Michelle, I went through this last year. We had a not very much planned and advanced trip to Europe and I had to get a passport renewed in a hurry. And I guess a lot of people have that issue, but some of them are getting scammed. Yeah, absolutely. If you just search online, those top results might show official-looking websites offering to renew or get you a passport. And some of those websites are private companies that charge for services that could be free if you just go to the U.S. Department of State website yourself, while others are scammers trying to take your money in personal information and deliver nothing for what they gather from you. So what happens is scammers set up sites with similar names, flags, and seals, and they pretend to be affiliated with the government, and they charge anywhere from $60 to a few hundred dollars. They promise to get you a passport. In some cases, they promise to elevate your status so you'll get things quicker. And if you're in a situation like you were where you want to take that trip quickly, you could really fall victim to this. And, you know, when you got your back against a wall, sometimes you get desperate. Yeah, absolutely. But the safest thing is to go to the official site where you need to be doing business. And in this case, that's travel.state.gov. Again, the U.S. Department of State where you will be able to work with the government officially. And they have an expedited process listed there. And, yes, you will have to pay your normal passport fees, but you're not paying a company to do business for you where they won't be able to elevate your status. And you're not giving your information to a scammer where you'll end up with nothing. And I'm going to give you one tip, too. If you really have a problem, you can always call your congressman or your senator. And that's what I ended up doing. And they were wonderful. Excellent advice there because they are available to receive those requests and can help assist individuals with government processes. All right. So if you have any problems, Michelle, let's give that Wisconsin Consumer Protection Hotline Number. 1-800-422-7128.