Bill Pay Impersonators Pose as Real Companies in Paid Search Ads

You search online for a company bill-pay page, and the top result looks right — familiar name, official-sounding. But it is a paid search ad for a different company that has no relationship with the one you meant to pay. In the FTC complaint against Doxo, a paid ad made Doxo appear as the official payment page of a well-known lab company, even though no such relationship existed. Doxo also mispresented itself as an official payment channel for companies and state agencies, including Labcorp, AT&T, and state toll authorities.

The tell is in the results and the fees. Paid search results are advertised — the company paid to appear there, which says nothing about whether it is legitimate. When you finally pay, the site may add charges you never agreed to. Scroll past the paid ads, and if you know the official web address, type it directly into your browser instead of clicking a search result.