Throwing hands up in the air. I run into this too. It is especially frustrating to us who measure, who take the painstaking effort to detail these specific details for the Race Directors. Ultimately one wonders why they had the course certified only to trivialize the hard diligent work of the measurer on their behalf. It is a slap in the face. I think it comes down to a heart to heart with the Race Director. If they are going to pretend that it is certified it cheapens the sport in our eyes and the legitimacy of the advertisement of said distance. If they don't care they should be willing for that information to leak to the participants that care and ask. That would be one of the consequence of their actions.
That said. We take this stuff way more serious than 99% of the runners running and in the real world... Most will not complain about that PR--that is until they find out it was short. This is a real problem that happens a lot.