FTC Sues Passport Sites That Impersonated the Government in Google Ads

According to the Federal Trade Commission, GovAssist LLC, Entry LLC and Scott Zuckerman ran websites that made travelers believe they were dealing with the federal government when they searched for passport services online.

The FTC alleges that since at least October 2023, the defendants hosted sites including GovAssist.com, Entry.com and IVS.us. These sites offered passport applications, visa applications and visa renewals while pretending to be affiliated with the U.S. State Department.

How the ads worked

The mechanism sits inside an ordinary Google search. Someone types a plain phrase: apply for a new passport, get a new passport, how can I renew my passport. Google shows the defendants' pages as sponsored results at the top of the page, in the exact spot where a searcher expects to find the real State Department site.

A sponsored ad slot is doing the work a fake email or phone call usually does elsewhere. The scam does not need to trick anyone into opening a suspicious link. It only needs the ad auction to put a convincing look-alike where the real government site should be.

What was promised and what was delivered

The complaint says the defendants promised they could directly issue U.S. passports. In many cases, consumers received only a completed application form, the same form available free on the State Department's own website.

Pricing worked the same way. GovAssist and Entry advertised services starting at $89. The actual lowest price was $119 plus a $29 shipping fee, for a total of $148. The additional payment still owed to the State Department was omitted or downplayed, so some consumers did not realize they would have to pay again when they actually submitted their application.

Why this case matters beyond passports

This is not a scam built on a typo'd domain or a text message. It runs through paid search, a channel every government-services search touches. That is the part worth flagging for anyone who automates scam detection: the deceptive signal is not in a suspicious link but in the gap between what an ad promises and what the advertiser is actually authorized to do. Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the action should serve as a warning that the FTC will pursue search advertising schemes that mislead consumers or distort competition.

Flggd watches for exactly this pattern, government impersonation surfacing through paid placement rather than a spoofed address, because the entry point is a search box, not an inbox.

Anyone applying for or renewing a passport should go to the State Department's own travel.state.gov site directly rather than clicking a sponsored result, and should know that the free application form is always available there without paying a third party first.