02/09/2012 – CorpCo recently received a suspicious solicitation/invoice from the “United States Trademark Registration Office”. The envelope featured “bold print” advising IMPORTANT – OPEN IMMEDIATELY. Upon careful review of the correspondence, we confirmed that this was NOT an official notice and was in fact another “scam” mailing.
The REAL United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently updated their site to address these solicitations. View this section of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
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01/23/2012 – State of California – UPDATE re: Annual Review Board or Business Filings Division Solicitation SCAMS
View the Press release as issued from the California Attorney General’s Office
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Georgia joins the ever growing list of State’s whose corporations/LLC’s are targeted by “corporate compliance scams”.
Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel has warned corporations that her office received numerous complaints about solicitations sent from a firm called “Compliance Services.” The firm offers to complete corporate meeting minutes on behalf of Georgia corporations for a fee. The “Annual Minutes Requirement Statement” included in the offer is very similar to solicitations mailed over the last two years from firms named “Georgia Corporate Compliance” and “Georgia Corporate Headquarters.”
Despite the implications contained in the solicitation, Georgia corporations are not required by law to file corporate minutes with the Secretary of State. Additionally, Compliance Services is not registered with the Secretary of State’s Corporations Division to do business in Georgia.
“Georgia corporate customers should be advised that their company is not required to file annual minutes,” Handel said.
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The Secretary of State’s Office has discovered an apparent attempt to defraud North Carolina businesses. The “National Companies Register Corporation” is mailing “Important Final Notices” to North Carolina businesses in an effort to collect $487.00 on the premise that businesses are required to nationally register under the Patriot Act of 2001.
This notice contains elements of the North Carolina Seal and the website is capable of directing you to the North Carolina Secretary State’s corporate search web page. Be assured, no such governmental national registry exists.
Moreover, on December 27, 2007 North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper enjoined Bernd A. Taubert, doing business as National Business Registration and National Companies Registrar Corporation in a Temporary Restraining Order in North Carolina Superior Court for Deceptive Trade Practices in order to prevent further violations of law and further harm to businesses in North Carolina.
If you receive a fraudulent notice to register your business in a national database to avoid dissolution of your corporation, please do the following:
1. Keep the notice, mailing envelope and return envelope.
2. Contact the United States Postal Inspections Service to report mail fraud at: 877-876-2455 or https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/
(Choose – investigations drop down menu – mail fraud – file a complaint)
Contact the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, Attention: Horace Farrar at 919-807-2040 or email to hfarrar@sosnc.com
You may also check your business status anytime through the North Carolina Secretary of State website.
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California dissolutions are the lastest target of these unethical and persuasive scams! See information as posted on the California Secretary of State’s web page – http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/be/alert-misleading-solicitations-terminations.htm
Contact CorpCo if you have received any of these solicitations or with any questions regarding this issue
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Arkansas business owners are now being targeted by these deceptive solicitations. When receiving mail from a company calling itself “Corporate Compliance” or “Compliance Services” please be aware that while “official looking”, these solicitations are NOT from a legitimate state or government agency and are NOT required to be completed/returned/paid for.
Please contact CorpCo with any questions regarding the legitimacy of any mail received which requests corporate minutes to be filed and/or fees paid for filing of annual minutes.
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If your company is incorporated or registered to conduct business as a foreign corporation or LLC in Texas, California or Nevada, you may have been targeted by these filing scams. The scam consists of a solicitation letter warning you that your annual minutes have not been filed with the “corporate compliance” office and offer to take care of this for you, for a fee of $99 or $125.
This is not a requirement from the State office and these letters are NOT official. By responding to these letters and/or sending payments in response to them, you receive nothing in return and in some cases your registered agent information may be changed or removed from the state’s records.
At CorpCo we encourage all of our clients to contact us when they receive any unusual or unexpected documents that require a filing fee. We can quickly and easily confirm whether or not the letter/request is legitimate. Please contact our office for more information or any questions regarding this topic!
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