The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) commenced investigation on the organizations who charge for certain services, which can be accessed without any payment from the Government. The authorities were taking such a move in the wake of reports made against certain companies who were found to be misleading their customers.

The companies at fault developed websites, which appeared to be a governmental website and provided commercial services with charging the customers for services, which did not require any payment. A search made at the Google engine found that many websites charged for an access to the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), whereas it was available for free of cost from NHS. Like, a website called www. e111-heathcard. org charged £14.99 for an EHIC, whereas www. healthcardeu. org charges £9.95.

All these dealings were claimed to be unfair as per the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. People were provided with the right to file a lawsuit against such websites for misleading the consumers.

As per Cavendish Elithorn, the Senior Director of the OFT's goods and consumer group, "We will be considering whether any of the sites under investigation are misleading consumers. With summer holidays approaching, many people will be making applications for EHICs in particular, so we encourage travellers to take time to check that they are using an official Government website”.