32 pounds lost!

I never thought losing pounds could be so easy.

I renewed my passport last week. What a great way to lose pounds. Let me explain.

To put it bluntly, I was scammed. Now I consider myself fairly savvy. I know paracetamol home brand tablets are just as good as the trade names. I know to check price comparison sites. Heck, I even have both a Nectar card and a Clubcard for Tesco.

But I was well and truly hoodwinked by what I thought was an official passport site. I'll share it with you so you're not caught, too.

I logged on, Googled passports and went on to an official looking site. They asked for details, passport details and took payment and said my form would be with me in a few days.

It was...and they charged me £32.50...and I imagined that was a reduced rate for paying online. Imagine my shock when I presented the completed form to the nice lady at Bury Post Office and informed her I'd already paid £32.50 of the total.

She very nicely informed me that I'd been taken for a ride by the passport site. I wasn't alone. The site, she said, charges unsuspecting punters £32.50 for sending their details on to the actual passport agency. Nice work if you can get it.

So I still had the full amount to pay - through gritted teeth after the big letters M-U-G appeared above my head.

The moral is to make sure you use the government site...not the one I used. Or better still, walk into the Post Office and pick up a form in person.