regestration scam

[Slyfox]

I got a letter from the FAA that my kitfox registration was going to expire. I got two letters, one from the us department of transportation and another from the National aviation center. I went to the web site from the national aviation center which was nationalaviationcenter.us and they had me fill out questions for my aircraft, when I got to the bottom it said pay 65dollars with all the stuff for a credit card. I said hold on, it's suppose to be like 5 dollars. I cancelled out. this morning I grabbed both letters and noticed that the stamp charge on the front was different, the address of Oklahoma city was different.
I went into the other web site from faa. gov. started the process for registration and it goes right to the form 8050-1B. so beware of this scam.

I went back in there this morning for the national aviation center and it had a click for reregistering an aircraft and the amount was like 365. be careful, don't fall for this. :eek:

[Dave S]

Steve & All,


This mode of operation is customary and usual for people trying to make money off folks for what the government will do for free or for a very nominal cost - and then blame the government for everything they think is wrong.


If it is not XXXXXXXX.gov, it's not uncle sam




Back when I was working, another federal agency, the US Food and Drug administration (FDA) initiated a required program that anyone operating a food facility (manufacturing, distribution, retail) had to register with FDA - ostensibly the reason was so that the agency could contact food facilities early enough to intervene in a recall or terrorism event thereby keeping the poison from spreading. Furthermore The FDA did this for no charge -zero, zip, zilch - no charge.



Upshot on this, a client in north central MN contacted me in a state of obvious consternation saying that the FDA had ripped him off for a bit over $500 to register his little facility (and I do mean little). OK - so a little investigation revealed that he had connect on line to an outfit called "fdaregistrar.com", thinking that was the FDA, which had thoroughly emblazoned its website to look like the FDA's website, with red, white and blue, American flags and all - maybe even some apple pie and motherhood thrown in for good measure. Ended up being a bunch of New York lawyers trying to enhance their income a little by doing for individuals at a rediculus price what the government would do for nothing other than a little data entry. Fortunately I had the position of authority to threaten the idiots into giving the guy his money back. Oh yeah - they would do the paperwork for you........$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



This particular mode of scamming/skimming is common to far more disciplines than what you would guess.


Slaughter of the innocents.........

[bumsteer]

AOPA has mentioned this scam several times lately. Can't remeber for sure but I think EAA also. Don't fall for it.

Rick

[Ronin]

About as bad as the crooks that went and reserved all the short N numbers and if you want one they charge you based on how short the N number is. You can spend 5k to get one.