Vessel Documentation Portal Scam/deception

I would hope for as long as that sham has been around the powers that be would have looked into a way of shutting them down.
Some years ago there was a black out in this area where it turned out all of the people were thinking of course someone called the power company so they did not. When I eventually called, they said they had no report on our outage.
In another example I recently had a conversation with a city manager on a nearly two year "thing" I've been involved with and along with the pledge of support was also a comment that my information was the first he had heard of the ongoing issue.
Maybe in my two examples they were both FOS but perhaps if everyone that reads your post will write or call their Federal Reps change will take place.

Yawn. This has been going on for years.

They are doing nothing illegal and when requested by the USCG to modify their site and make it clearer, they have done so. I would simply say to everyone caught and paying an extra $50, you should thank them for the cheapest lesson you could learn as there are thousands of scams out there from Social Security to anything you can imagine and if $50 teaches one to be more careful, then worth it every day.

This specific spam points out two issues. First was the USCG making the addresses of all documented owners available. Second is that one can buy top ranking in searches. If one wanted to buy ads on the words "Yacht Forums" to promote themselves, then it would appear above this site. Now if Carl could then prove the words weren't relevant to their site, he could get them removed.

The most dangerous to you are all the emails pretending to be your bank, your computer provider, Microsoft or anyone else. Today, you can't trust anything at face value. Now before one talks about the changing world, you never could. That well dressed insurance salesman you met at your local general store 50 or 100 years ago or the roofer who showed up at your door, all the same.

They argue that a lot of people need assistance. Others need reminding. Most now have a clear disclaimer that they are not associated with the CG. Now, do I feel they are ethical? No. But lot's of businesses I feel that way about. The reputation of most is that they do promptly submit to the CG. My point is as scams go it's a small one and should serve as a warning to people before they fall for a much worse such scam. Simple rule is never respond to a mailer or emailer. Always go directly to the site. Make sure it's the site of the entity you want. Do not go there through a link. People need to get those rules in mind. Too many chances to lose large amounts. Respond to a bank link and go into the crook's website and enter your id and password and you're wiped out.

A general rule of thumb that I've always followed is that you NEVER do something that someone out of the blue tells you to.

If an email says "click here" - don't. If it says "look at this attachment" - don't. Viruses or password theft await...

If it says "this is an important message, forward it to everyone you know" - don't. Every single one of these I've seen has been bogus in some way.

If a robo-call says "press 1 to speak to an agent" - don't. If they want to talk, they should get a real person to call.

Similar to this CG scam, there are people who mail out domain name renewal notices, hoping that you'll renew for them (for an extra charge) instead of dealing directly with your current registrar.

OTOH, if a Lawyer or retired General or politician from an obscure African country asks you to contact him to receive a couple million dollars....

Or the ghost of Ed McMahon contacts you to say you may already have won........

And they scam millions from seniors who can't afford it by guaranteeing they are winners and getting them to buy $20-50 per month worth of garbage.