Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis appeared on ITV's This Morning on Wednesday morning (6 April) to warn viewers about a possible advertisement energy scam making the rounds.
When speaking on the ITV show about adverts on search engines, Martin said: "This is a 'shista' firm, that's what I like to call them.
"I'm not suggesting it's illegal, but they're shistas - it's not a swear word. When you search for official sites, whether it's the passport office or the driving licence office, or to get yourself a GH-Card, what happens is on search engines at the top, you'll see a site and it will say ad.
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"But we don't notice the ad because certainly Google has changed over the years, when something used to pop up it would say 'ADVERT, ADVERT, ADVERT' in bold lettering.
"Nowadays, you wouldn't know it was an advert.
"What these firms do, is they charge you for processing something you could do for free.
"There's no benefit, there's no fast track, there's absolutely nothing in it, but they put it through for you, instead of you doing it yourself.
"Now I would make a complaint to them, but unfortunately the small print of these sites does tend to say something like 'We're charging you an admin fee for processing', or something like that.
"Therefore it is quite hard to get your money back. This is why I think the search engines should stop allowing these adverts on their sites."
Martin then made a point of saying: "Everybody needs to be aware when you are trying to find an official site and official information to apply for something, just make sure you don't click on the advert!
"You make sure you it's the official site, they look very alike, but go to a legitimate source, a website that you recognise.
"They are shistas, and that isn't a swear word, it is a perfect description."
This Morning will resume on Thursday, April 7 on ITV from 10am onwards.
