Hey all. I'm a newbie here. I tried on another thread to provide new drone flyers with some simple awareness about the drone registration process. Unfortunately that thread got derailed and waaaay off topic. So I'm going to keep this simple. In case you have not registered your drone yet... make sure you go to the one and only site where you can register your drone:
sUAS Registration - Create Account
It only takes a few minutes and costs only $5.00. You can print your registration card, etc immediately after registering and they make the process simple.
Unfortunately I was totally unaware of where I had to register my drone (my mistake)... and I googled "drone registration" and clicked on www.drone-registration.net. Despite their name saying "drone-registration," they do not provide actual FAA drone registration. As others pointed out, this site states in the fine print that they are not the FAA and you must go to the FAA to register. But this site looks VERY similar to the FAA site, but it did nothing other than charge $12 for their label and then provide a link to the FAA web site. Yes, they say this in the small fine print, but it's very easy to miss. As you can see here, their site is designed to look like the FAA site:
The www.drone-registration.net site is on the left. FAA website is on the right. Anybody can see the obvious attempt to deceive the user into thinking they are proceeding with the required drone registration. I contacted the FAA and they agreed that this is very frustrating, but they said that unfortunately there is nothing that can be done. SO I'm here to simply provide others with some simple awareness. I messed up and want to help others avoid the same. If you want to go to that site to get a label for $12, then that might be a good option for you.
And just to reiterate.... I'm not here to do anything other than provide simple awareness. Most everyone here will obviously already be registered. But maybe someone might stumble upon that site as I did and hopefully they'll double check before proceeding. And thus if they search about that site, then this threat might provide some clarity. Thanks all and may you and your drone enjoy Blue Skies!
sUAS Registration - Create Account
It only takes a few minutes and costs only $5.00. You can print your registration card, etc immediately after registering and they make the process simple.
Unfortunately I was totally unaware of where I had to register my drone (my mistake)... and I googled "drone registration" and clicked on www.drone-registration.net. Despite their name saying "drone-registration," they do not provide actual FAA drone registration. As others pointed out, this site states in the fine print that they are not the FAA and you must go to the FAA to register. But this site looks VERY similar to the FAA site, but it did nothing other than charge $12 for their label and then provide a link to the FAA web site. Yes, they say this in the small fine print, but it's very easy to miss. As you can see here, their site is designed to look like the FAA site:
The www.drone-registration.net site is on the left. FAA website is on the right. Anybody can see the obvious attempt to deceive the user into thinking they are proceeding with the required drone registration. I contacted the FAA and they agreed that this is very frustrating, but they said that unfortunately there is nothing that can be done. SO I'm here to simply provide others with some simple awareness. I messed up and want to help others avoid the same. If you want to go to that site to get a label for $12, then that might be a good option for you.
And just to reiterate.... I'm not here to do anything other than provide simple awareness. Most everyone here will obviously already be registered. But maybe someone might stumble upon that site as I did and hopefully they'll double check before proceeding. And thus if they search about that site, then this threat might provide some clarity. Thanks all and may you and your drone enjoy Blue Skies!
