Vessel Doc - USCG or Maritime Doc Center?

[Jenta]

Sounds like the exact same type of email I see all the time for domain renewals. I have several clients I host domains for and am listed as the registrar for most of them and get this kind of thing all the time. Every once in a while someone gets one and asks me about it and it's almost always the same thing. "No, you already pay $15 a year for domain registration and it's automatically renewed and I bill you directly. You don't need to pay these guys $75 or lose your domain."

Interesting that they are both usually $75. Same parent company?

Used to have the same thing with "Yellow Page" ads back when there were phone books. Sure, they were "legit" because they actually did put an ad in their "book" for $600 for the year, and for only $200 more they listed you on a page on their website. But it has always been about a certain amount of deception in my opinion.

[hellosailor]

MDC is a scam site. Report them to the FTC as they are trying to impersonate a federal agency (the USCG VDC) and they need to be spanked. Hard.

If they give the impression of being "the" renewal agency via the internet, that should be prosecuted as wire fraud.

[jmschmidt]

One is a for-profit, but legal, scam. The other is the real deal. Your figure out which is which. One sends the real fee to the other and keeps the rest so you get to pay tripple. If you give one of them your credit card info "for your convenience" (of corse) they will take triple your money for the rest of your life, or at least your boats life.

If your fall for this there are similar scams (not illegal, mind you) where you can get your passport renewed and pay triple, get forms from the IRS for a price (the same ones the IRS will mail as many as you want for free) and I'm sure dozens of other sucker website.

Note: Do not renew your USCG Certificate of Documentation before the month in which it is due. If your COD expires on April 30th but you send in your renewal in March, their crazy system will reset your next expiration date to March 31st of the next year. Then your will only get eleven months out of your fee. I wouldn't be surprised if the scammer do the same thing to accelerate their profits. In fact, that's probably why they send our their notices three months in advance.

It's the world we live in. Nobody deals with you straight up anymore.

[Chuck34]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

Note: Do not renew your USCG Certificate of Documentation before the month in which it is due. If your COD expires on April 30th but you send in your renewal in March, their crazy system will reset your next expiration date to March 31st of the next year. Then your will only get eleven months out of your fee. I wouldn't be surprised if the scammer do the same thing to accelerate their profits. In fact, that's probably why they send our their notices three months in advance.

Yes, the scam people send out their reminder letter a couple of weeks before the real CG Doc office does, meaning there's a good chance you will loose a month, maybe two, of documentation. I lost a month when I fell for this scam and I've seen posts where some people have lost 2 months. If you renew when you get the real CG reminder letter, you should be fine. They time their letter to arrive so you don't loose a month.

[reduc]

FYI - for Recreational vessels you can multi-year register.


Multi-Year Certificate of Documentation: RECREATIONAL Only

U.S. Coast Guard sent this bulletin at 01/18/2019 09:10 AM EST Recreational vessel owners who wish to renew for more than one year may do so by including additional fees in the amount of $26.00 per extra year requested, and annotating same on the CG-7042 Credit Card Form, or in the Memo line of checks.

[lelolay]

Originally Posted by EmeraldCoastSailor

I get two notices re renewal of USCG Documentation; one from Maritime Documentation Center that arrives way early and one from USCG. The USCG directs me to renew on USCG website and the other directs me to www.maritimedocumentation.us.

I renew on the USCG site for $26 and didn't see a choice for multiple years, which is ok by me. The MaritimeDoc site seemed to be $75 with options for multiple years at $75 for each additional year. Is this just clever capitalism or something more strange?

CAUTION CAUtion there are a lot of Companies trying to get you to use their services an this is one of their tricks!!!. Deal with the USCG only.