I ran a search on the domain name and found it was only registered a few weeks ago by an individual called Sarah White.

The sales pitch attempts to set it apart from the other products on the market by claiming they have years of experience, despite the fact the website was only recently registered.

After a bit of research, it soon became apparent that this is a scam to lure you into parting with an administration fee, in exchange for the promise of a courier job at the rate of £20 per hour for 8 hours per day, with the implication that you would earn £160 a day. This is just one of the more outrageous claims made by this company.

A quick search on google turned up volumes of complaints about this website. It seems a considerable number of people have paid the administration fee, yet not one of them has reported getting any work at all.

This website does seem strangely similar to a previous scam site http://www.drivingjobcentre.co.uk/ which has finally been closed down along with http://www.thereferencegroup.co.uk/ who were apparently supplying their fake references.

Update 08/03/12: Another website has come to our attention UK-COURIERSOLUTIONS.NET which is operating a very similar scam to the parcellink.net website, strangely both websites were registered in Jan 2012. Could there be a connection? Please leave us your feedback…..

Update 14/03/12: Yet another website, bearing all the same scam style hallmarks of the above, has come to our attention http://www.uk-courierservices.net/ again, we are not sure if it is connected to the above 2 websites, but we strongly suggest that you avoid handing over any money. uk-courierservices.net has all the hallmarks of a yet another courier scam. We await your feedback……

Update 17/05/12: A new website http://www.courier-network.net/ has been brought to our attention, which was only registered on the 22nd of march 2012. It looks very similar in principle to the scams listed above and strangely the name of the website owner is hidden from searches. They are also claiming that you will get paid by the hour, which has been the hallmark of almost every courier scam we have seen so far. It is very probably that the same person/people are behind all these websites, simply launching under a new name as each scam is exposed. This website is identical to one launched a year ago, which disapeared after being exposed as a scam on google and now seems to have resurfaced with a new domain name. We have also noted they are cleverly asking for the money to be deposited directly into their bank account, which would make claiming a refund impossible. Has anyone asked for their money back and actually got it back? Please leave us your feedback below……..

There’s a lot of things wrong with the UK Driving sales pitch which sets off the alarm bells if you know what to look for.

The first thing you will notice is the piece of code the owner has found that shows todays date.

The owner is so impressed with this sales gimmick he’s used it twice, once at the top of the page telling you to ‘apply before midnight…14th December’ and then again lower down the page saying ‘places guaranteed for all applications made before midnight: 14th December’

Check it out again any time past midnight and the date will say 15th December. This actually used to work back around 2002 but most people nowadays no its a sales gimmick.

The next thing I don’t like is the statement in the header and repeated throughout the rest of the sales pitch saying that the company has been established since 2002. A quick search on whois.net tells me the domain was first registered on 27th April 2010, not good.

There is also a ‘as seen on TV’ badge on display but no mention of the show it was supposedly featured on.

He has 3 Web Guard badges on display saying the site is ’security verified’ ‘privacy verified’ and ‘business verified.’ These are fake and Web Guard have been informed he’s falsely displaying their badges.

Finally, at the end of the sales pitch is the AA badge and the owner clearly hopes that having the badge on display will help sales by association even though the AA had never heard of UKDriving.org until I emailed them.

The sales pitch tries to come across as a job application form and statements such as:

‘Once you start we place no limit on the driving you do’ implies you are actually guaranteed work at the end of the course.

You aren’t of course. A quick search at Google for ‘ukdriving.org scam’ reveals plenty of unfortunates who fell for the sales pitch and forked out their £49 only to find they got an out of date list of courier companies and an ebook full of bad advice. On principal I’m not about to add my name to that list.

There is no name or address on the site but if you have purchased you can request a refund through Paypal as long as you make the request within 45 days.

Update 2nd of Feburary 2011 – it has been brought to our attention that they are now implying there is a contact telephone number available to call them…. but not until you pay of course! Cleverly they are using a photo of a girl (apperently called Sam) with a headset on to reinforce this impression. We decided to buy this ourselves just to see what happens (we are quite keen to speak to the person behind this) and you know what? No telephone number anywhere to be seen in the so called members area, not even an email address!  Incredibly, they then try to sell you another scam called webworkingonline telling you how to earn another £350 a day and guess what, you will get the contact details of Maureen (another girl with a headset), but again, not until you part with another £49 for the fast start working online application! Here’s the link: webworkingonline.org

So we can confidently confirm without any doubt at all, ukdriving.org is a scam. Once we parted with our cash, we accessed a pdf file which diverted us to the menbers area, where we got a contact list that looks like it’s been copied from somewhere else and appears years out of date. There is also a courier ebook, where at least two thirds of the entire book is taken up with a contact list (cleverly only 5 contacts per page to increase the number of pages in the ebook).  A quick count revealed there are only 10-15 pages about how to be a courier, the rest of them are about sat nav’s, breakdown cover and other generic nonsense designed to bulk out the publication. So where is the Guaranteed 7 day fast start job application? As we suspected, we’ve been ripped off.

UKDriving.org also uses the domains drivingUK.net / Drivingpay.org /ukdriving.org / drivingdirect.org

The CRV courier guide was written by Andy Stevens who is well known and respected throughout the industry. He covers all the pitfalls he discovered when first becoming a freelance courier and shows you how to avoid them.

Andy told us “it took me months to regularly hit £1500 a week but if I had known then what I know now, I could have reached that target within weeks instead of months.”

No longer just a guide, CRV courier has evolved over the last 2 years to become the best friend of all courier start up businesses.

It offers on going support and advice through its full time staff on all aspects of being a freelance courier.

At £39.99 this is not the cheapest guide you will find here but it is by some distance the best. The price includes an instant download PDF version of the book plus you get a hard copy shipped to your door.

The icing on the cake though is the weekly reports you get of all the courier companies looking to hire freelance couriers. For someone in their first year of business these reports really are priceless.

You also get access to the private members area which includes a forum where you can ask others who have been or are going through the same process you currently are, a download area where you will find invoice templates, business card designs and other items to help the freelance courier.

Whether you are just at the planning stage, weighing up your options or ready to go today, CRV Courier is a must for anyone thinking about becoming a freelance courier.

Disclaimer: We are not associated or affiliated with CRV. We receive no reward for our recommendations.

The main document “So you want to become a freelance courier?” weighs in at just 20 pages BUT there is no fluff and filler here, just good solid information. Everything you would expect to be covered is, such as type of vehicle, insurance, becoming self employed etc.

The only problem we can see with the document is that its not been updated since 2005. Its not a major flaw but certain sections such as should you use sat nav are a little outdated.

Other documents that come with this package include 3 handy reports to help your business, Business Finance, Save Your Licence and Marketing For Freelance Couriers.

We were particularly impressed with the short report “Marketing For Freelance Couriers.” Again, short and sweet but no fluff and some great tips, ideas and relevant information.

As well as the above you will also receive templates for several letters used in the courier industry:

Customer Letter
Example Invoice
Example POD
Example Receipt
Example Terms and Conditions

All the documents are delivered electronically in PDF format.

There is plenty here for any potential freelance courier and at just £9.95 it offers great value for money.

It’s a shame the author doesn’t bring it up to date for 2010. If he did he could easily double the price and we would still be recommending Courier marketing.

Over all great value but needs updating for another star.

It mentions ‘£300 a day’ and ‘£1500 a week’ a bit too much and seems to be trying to appeal to greed rather than tempting the reader with what’s in the content.

It says it is only 60 pages but includes the contact details of over 1100 courier businesses, which appears to takes up at least half of the ebook, not leaving much in the way of useful information.

It says it has a no quibble guarantee yet there are no terms to be found anywhere.

On the frequently asked questions page we did find an info address to someone at sweetmoneybusinesspublications.com which is a company run by a Mr. Shaun Smith which claims to show people how to make easy money online.

Further research into Mr. Smith led us to several of his blogs and on 1 we found a video of him telling his viewers how Self Employed Courier nets him over £700 a week and is just one of his many online ventures. There is also some very worrying information reported back about previous scams he has been involved with.

Now i don’t know if Mr. Smith is referring to himself when he talks about 22 years in the courier business but Sweet Money Publications seems to be a one man band and he claims to have been full time on line for many years. I suspect he has never actually been a courier at all and his only experience of courier work is selling this guide.

Regards the guarantee: The internet is full of people complaining about this guy so you spends your money and takes your chance. We decided not to bother.

On the plus side it’s just under £20 although only available in e-book form. However, given shaun smiths reputation, proceed with caution.

It is extremely thorough starting with how to get up and running quickly via courier over spill work and then showing how to expand your business with private company work.

Absolutely nothing here is left to chance and to be honest that may be its only fault. The 2010 Freelance Courier System tries a little too hard to cover all the bases and may leave you with information overload.

The creator may have been better off creating a whole suite of products and allowing the freelance courier to purchase as he progresses in his business venture.

How to start up your own freelance courier business includes:

Professionally written direct response proposal and follow up letters.
Professional sales training for couriers.
Advanced profit strategies for freelance couriers.
Advanced customer acquisition system for couriers.
How to design a professional website so you can advertise online.

It’s certainly a lot to take in and you could easily end up fixed to your seat instead of taking action.

I would recommend only watching the info relevant to your situation and then returning to your DVD’s as and when required over the coming months.

At £24.95 plus £5.97 P&P the 2010 Freelance Courier System is very good value for money.

Comes with a full 90 day guarantee so you have nothing to lose but your time spent watching the videos. However, I would recommend this course for people further along the road than just the ‘thinking about it’ or stage.

It was a close call but in the end we went for 4 stars although it only failed on 5 because of the use of the website. With all the pop ups asking if you are sure you want to leave and the ‘fake sales person online box’ the sales page is a pain to leave.

Disclaimer: We are not associated or affiliated to this product in any way.