A company director with a taste for supercars is being investigated by Trading Standards over an alleged clean-air-zone payment scam fleecing motorists.
Christopher Miller runs a firm behind suspected ‘copycat’ websites that charge inflated fees to drive in cities with low-emission zones such as Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol and Bath.
He uses sponsored ads on Google to ensure they appear prominently when drivers search for official payment pages.
But they have no connection to council portals, and drivers have claimed the money is not paid to the authorities.
Alleged victims said they only discovered this weeks after paying Miller’s firm, when they are hit with a fine by the council for failing to pay the charge.
On social media, Miller, 41, boasts of holidays in Abu Dhabi and Las Vegas, and flying over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter.
In the past 18 months he has shown off cars such as a Porsche Boxster, Lamborghini Gallardo and Ferrari Spider.
Chris Hill, lead officer at Trading Standards Wales, said his team had been investigating Miller for a year and forced several of his websites to be removed.
Christopher Miller (pictured), 41, uses sponsored ads on Google to ensure his ‘copycat’ websites appear prominently when drivers search for official payment pages
Christopher Miller (pictured) runs a firm behind suspected ‘copycat’ websites that charge inflated fees to drive in cities with low-emission zones
But he added: ‘As soon as they go, they pop up as something else with a slightly different name. I think we’re looking at tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds.’
In its terms and conditions, Miller’s SKM Group warns it is not an official payment portal and charges a ‘service fee for assisting you in the application and payment of driving in a Clean Air Zone (CAZ)’.
But many motorists have complained about being fined after unwittingly paying CAZ charges using SKM Group.
One told the Mail how she was fined after paying the now defunct SKM Group site cleanairzones.online £14 when she drove in Birmingham in October.
She said: ‘Miller’s site was the number-one result on Google, and when I entered my registration it correctly identified my car – there was no reason to believe it was anything but legitimate. I had no idea the genuine fee is £8.
‘I was in a hurry to pay… so I didn’t read the small print. But who does?’ She only realised her money hadn’t gone to the official site when a £60 fine arrived.
‘Miller’s website had vanished and the phone number on my receipt was dead,’ she said.
She reported him to Trading Standards and a day later her £14 was refunded. She said: ‘Someone from SKM giving his name as “Mark” called from a withheld number.
A motorist told the Mail how she was fined after paying the now defunct SKM Group site cleanairzones.online £14 when she drove in Birmingham in October
He insisted their sites weren’t a scam, tried to play it down as a simple oversight and offered to cover my fine.’
SKM Group is registered to a farm on the edge of Swansea, but the Mail spoke to Miller at the semi-detached house in Canterbury he shares with his girlfriend.
After pulling up in a red Ferrari without a front number plate, he denied any wrongdoing, saying: ‘We have nothing to worry about.’
He accepted ‘some issues’ had left customers ‘disgruntled’, but mostly after they put the wrong city into his payment page, and such errors were always refunded.
Later, he emailed: ‘We clearly state in our terms and conditions – as well as on our website – that we are not an official government payment portal but instead provide a paid assistance service. Our fees are clearly disclosed before any payment is made.
‘SKM Group Ltd provides a genuine service. We have clear evidence to support that payments are passed on, refunds are issued, and fines are covered by our business where appropriate.
‘We strongly refute any claims of fraudulent activity or wrongdoing. Our company operates legally and ethically, and we comply with all relevant regulations.
‘We are fully cooperating with any inquiries and are confident our business practices stand up to scrutiny.’
Google said it removed any ads that violated its strict policies.
