Ok, so hear me out. And may this serve as a warning. I'm technical and usually fairly well-prepared, but still...

Mistake #1. On a Friday evening I decided to quickly settle things out for my upcoming travel to the USA in a little over a week (I'm in a dutch citizen, living in the Netherlands). Friday evening. After a very hard week and lots of travel. Very tired. Idiot. https://imgur.com/a/lmsaM48

Mistake #2. I google ESTA, and click on the first link that looks legit because it has something that looks like an offical US Gov seal etc. I don't check the domain or that it's under the sponsored section. Idiot.

Mistake #3. I land on a website that looks exactly what I expect a gov website to look like. Official badly designed form. But it's not too terrible. So I'm positively surprised. It's asking lots of questions. I don't look at the fine print. I start filling in the details. Idiot. https://imgur.com/a/b7kIoVn

Mistake #4. I fill everything in, upload my passport etc. Pay with a credit card (hey, I didn't forget to check for https!) IDIOT!

I receive an email with a confirmation. It doesn't have the $ paid. And I need an invoice to claim expenses as it's a work trip. That's when I start looking more closely and the penny drops.

I hope they just charged me 98 dollars instead of the official 21. That would be a fair price to pay for being an idiot.

But they have my passport details an all. Which is highly unsettling. I'm still wondering whether I need to go change everything immediately.

I'm mostly angry at myself for being an idiot, but also a little bit at google for allowing this shit. I guess what they are doing is not technically illegal (charging people 70 bucks for resubmitting their form). So it may be hard to pin down from a legal standpoint (assuming they don't sell your data). But still... prioritizing sponsored links when people are clearly searching for government websites seems like pure greedy evil. Meh.

P.S. THIS FRIDAY KEEPS GIVING Mistake #5. I post it here with a throwaway account ONLY TO REVEAL MY NAME in the Dropbox links (since changed to imgur). COMPLETE IDIOT! This day shall be celebrated as my personal idiocy day for many years to come. What else have I f*cked up?

user:	aednichols
created:	January 20, 2020
karma:	92