UNSCRUPULOUS financial websites are increasingly manipulating search engines in an attempt to lure consumers.

Hijackers distract web surfers away from the sites they intend to visit by including well-known brand names in paid-for adverts and search-engine listings, cloaking their true identity. The unwary focus on the brand name, click on the link and find themselves on a completely different website.

One company that has suffered is John Charcol, a leading mortgage broker. Marketing director Candice Hodgson said: “We’ve had a lot of problems with websites buying up our name and using it in sponsored links on search engines.

“We sent in a trademark complaint to Google, the biggest search engine, last month and it has now removed our name from sponsored links, but the problem with the main listings remains.”

And it isn’t just web novices who are being misled. When Pamela Farries, 31, from Reading, was looking for a mortgage she visited Google’s UK site and typed in the phrase “Charcol mortgages”. Near the top of the results was a website whose description included the search phrase, so Farries clicked on it without paying too much attention to the web address.

“When I went to the site it seemed different,” she said, “but it contained neutral information about mortgages so I just assumed Charcol had changed its format. The site asked me if I wanted an adviser to ring me, so I said yes.”

An adviser duly called and arranged to see Farries, a scientist with a defence-research company. “When I mentioned Charcol she was hazy with her answers,” Farries recalled, “but it was only later that I realised she wasn’t with Charcol at all. I didn’t follow her suggestions because she hadn’t answered my questions particularly well, and I felt I’d been had. I also felt very cross with myself for being so stupid.”

Farries said the website she had visited was not Charcolonline but www.Mortgage.gb.net, a “trading style” of 1st For Finance, based in Cardiff. It operates another website, 1st Direction Mortgages, which also includes the term “Charcol mortgages” in its Google listing.

Richard David, director of 1st For Finance, said: “We state on our websites that we are not Charcol. I think it’s very clear. We don’t have any control over how our page appears on Google.”

The explanatory text below a listing title is written by the website owner, however, not the search engine. Ema Linaker, Google UK spokeswoman, said: “To preserve the accuracy and quality of our search results Google may permanently ban from our index any sites or site authors that engage in cloaking to distort their search rankings. We are investigating this case and will take the appropriate action.”

The problem is not restricted to Google. When Web Wise typed “Charcol mortgages” into Yahoo’s UK search engine, the top sponsored link — which many web users do not realise has been paid for — belonged to Personal Funding, a completely different site.

Hodgson said: “These websites are simply trying to steal our customers and ride on the back of our reputation.”

And in an astonishing admission, Michael Anthony, Personal Funding’s webmaster, said: “I admit that I’m hijacking Charcol’s brand but it’s one of the best ways of getting traffic to our site. I am being a bit dodgy, but it’s a dog-eat-dog world. It’s up to a human editor at Overture [the company that sells online advertising for Yahoo!] to determine whether what I do is acceptable.”

Charcol is not the only financial adviser to be targeted. David Elms, chief executive of IFA Promotion, an organisation publicising independent financial advice, is concerned at the way unscrupulous firms pass themselves off as independent when they are not. “Non-IFA companies are bidding for slots on search engines and paying to come at the top of search results when consumers are looking for independent advisers,” said Elms. “This could be a massive cause of confusion.”

To add to the muddle, websites such as those operated by 1st For Finance are classed as mortgage introducers and are not regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Asked if cloaking breached the City regulator’s rules on financial advertising and promotion, a spokesman said: “Issues and disputes between companies about how they appear and are described on internet search engines are not a matter for the FSA.”

Elms said: “The lesson is to keep your wits about you when shopping for financial services online. Don’t assume links will take you where you assumed they would — you may be paying a visit to an impostor.”