Judge: Websites are misleading oil spill claimants

A federal judge presiding over a proposed class-action settlement of BP oil spill claims says two websites can mislead visitors into believing they are filing official claims.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier on Thursday ordered the operator of the sites — bpclaims.org and deepwaterhorizonsettlementclaims.com — to post disclaimers at the top of every page on the sites that they aren't the court-authorized site.

The site where residents can submit claims is deepwaterhorizonsettlements.com.

In May, Barbier gave preliminary approval to a settlement proposal to resolve billions of dollars in claims by people and businesses who blame economic losses on the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility paid more than $6 billion before a court-supervised administrator took over in March.