Satch
Member
I recently purchased a “documented vessel” and in the process of renewing and transferring the documentation to my name was scammed by a company pretending to be an agent of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), which is the agency that controls national vessel documentation for the USA. Since I am currently in the IT the profession and do practically everything online, I searched on the subject and quickly found what appeared to be the “official’ website for completing the process online. I moved a little too quickly and didn’t pay much attention to the fine print, which turned out to be a major league mistake. Unbeknownst to me, it was a third party scam site, intentionally impersonating the USCG. At the end of the application process, which asked for very little and was complete in about 10 minutes, I was asked to pay $450, which I thought was excessive compared to state vessel registration and titling fees, but this was the federal government after all, so I just chalked it up to bureaucratic inefficiency and ponied up.
In the email correspondence that confirmed my request, I noticed that the email return address was not from .gov or .mil, and so began to suspect something was wrong. I went back to the web and dug into it more carefully this time to find out that the site I found was not an agent of the USCG at all, and that the proper USCG site, the National Vessel Documentation Center (NVDC) knows full well of these imposters. There is a link on the NVDC home page entitled “Third Party Awareness” which goes to a page describing the problem and directing customer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission website. When I finally found the true USCG NVDC page for renewing and transferring vessel documentation, I learned that the fees involved amounted to $128. So the scammer charged me $322 more that it should have cost me just to take my data online and forward it to the USCG.
When I contacted the third party about cancelling my order, they produces a bunch of fine print bull**** that in my haste I had apparently clicked over without reading, which said that I could cancel the order but the fees are not refundable. Moreover, they told me that the Certificate of Documentation (COD) would be mailed to me from them, not directly from the USCG, meaning that they could intercept and withhold it from me. So I had no choice but to let them proceed or get nothing for my $450. I tried to dispute the charge with my credit card bank, explaining the third party’s impersonation of a federal office, the warning about them on the NVDC site, and their unfair business practices, but they refused my request, stating that they can’t get in the middle of a “contract”.
How these scammers are able to get away with this, especially given the warning on the NVDC website, is beyond me. These business practices are unfair and unethical, if not borderline illegal. However, I have neither the inclination nor the resources to challenge the legality of “contracts” made online with deceptive user interface design and electronic entrapment, so I am spreading the word to as many potential victims as I can reach with my social media tools.
Since becoming painfully aware of the problem I have found that there are many of these third party imposters. I won’t identify any of them because it would give them exposure that they don’t deserve. Instead, I give the link to the proper site, the USCG NVDC, below:
IF YOU ARE APPLYING FOR, RENEWING, OR TRANSFERRING NATIONAL VESSEL DOCUMENTATION THROUGH THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, GO TO THE NATIONAL VESSEL DOCUMENTATION WEBSITE AND NOWHERE ELSE:
https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Our-Organi...s-DCO-D/National-Vessel-Documentation-Center/
In the email correspondence that confirmed my request, I noticed that the email return address was not from .gov or .mil, and so began to suspect something was wrong. I went back to the web and dug into it more carefully this time to find out that the site I found was not an agent of the USCG at all, and that the proper USCG site, the National Vessel Documentation Center (NVDC) knows full well of these imposters. There is a link on the NVDC home page entitled “Third Party Awareness” which goes to a page describing the problem and directing customer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission website. When I finally found the true USCG NVDC page for renewing and transferring vessel documentation, I learned that the fees involved amounted to $128. So the scammer charged me $322 more that it should have cost me just to take my data online and forward it to the USCG.
When I contacted the third party about cancelling my order, they produces a bunch of fine print bull**** that in my haste I had apparently clicked over without reading, which said that I could cancel the order but the fees are not refundable. Moreover, they told me that the Certificate of Documentation (COD) would be mailed to me from them, not directly from the USCG, meaning that they could intercept and withhold it from me. So I had no choice but to let them proceed or get nothing for my $450. I tried to dispute the charge with my credit card bank, explaining the third party’s impersonation of a federal office, the warning about them on the NVDC site, and their unfair business practices, but they refused my request, stating that they can’t get in the middle of a “contract”.
How these scammers are able to get away with this, especially given the warning on the NVDC website, is beyond me. These business practices are unfair and unethical, if not borderline illegal. However, I have neither the inclination nor the resources to challenge the legality of “contracts” made online with deceptive user interface design and electronic entrapment, so I am spreading the word to as many potential victims as I can reach with my social media tools.
Since becoming painfully aware of the problem I have found that there are many of these third party imposters. I won’t identify any of them because it would give them exposure that they don’t deserve. Instead, I give the link to the proper site, the USCG NVDC, below:
IF YOU ARE APPLYING FOR, RENEWING, OR TRANSFERRING NATIONAL VESSEL DOCUMENTATION THROUGH THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, GO TO THE NATIONAL VESSEL DOCUMENTATION WEBSITE AND NOWHERE ELSE:
https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Our-Organi...s-DCO-D/National-Vessel-Documentation-Center/