CA Residents: Watch Out For Fake LLC Registration Scams
California requires limited liability companies to register with the state every two years. You could do this yourself by filling out a form and paying $20, or you could pay this shady company $239 to do the same thing.
Bob writes:
The state of California requires all LLC companies to file a Statement of Information with them every 2 years and pay a $20.00 filing fee. When I opened my mail yesterday to find the attached solicitation. Normally, I disregard all of them, as I can usually tell just by looking at the unopened envelope. I knew this was a solicitation, but opened it out of curiosity. I found form inside that VERY closely resembles an authentic Secretary of State form that must be filed by every LLC in the state of California. They are trying to scare people into sending them $200+ to file a form that really only costs $20 and that is only IF it must be filed. Even though the form explicitly states that this is not a government agency, I found this very interesting and immediately thought to bring it to the attention of the Consumerist. I am an avid reader of the sites and realize that the average Consumerist will disregard these immediately if they receive one, but I thought it would be nice to mention.
The actual form is viewable here (PDF). Both are posted below. Although they're not identical, they're pretty similar (and would have to be, considering the fake form will be used to complete and file a real statement). The seal in the upper left is an especially sneaky touch.
Real:
Fake:
We're glad Bob read this carefully and wasn't duped into paying way more than he needed to. Have you ever received a faux-official notice or warning like this?
(Photo: ToastyKen)
Thanks, Bob!
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Comments:
I have gotten similar with my domain registrations some "American Domain" company wants to charge me 50+ bucks per domain to renew, or go back to my registrar and pay 10 bucks. Anyone else get that?
I got one of these. Started to fill it out before I noticed the numbers after the dollar sign and the extremely unprofessional language used throughout. Then I pitched it into the shredder.
Even if you had an accountant do this, the service shouldn't be more than $100 (1/2hr to fill and mail @ $100/hr + filing fee & postage)
@OMG! SP00N: LOL, Yea. I own around 40+ domain names so I seem to get between one and six of these every week. Very annoying.
My boss is continually scammed by solicitations like this. I just found out she's been paying $400 a year for the Dept. of Labor posters that are completely free and downloadable from the CA Dept. of Labor website.
@Crabby Cakes: So why can't you approach your boss to give you 25% of the money you save him but intervening?
Hey boss, you're kinda' gullible. If I prevent you from being stupid, can I have some money?
@SkokieGuy: Hey, boss! Check out Crabby Cakes Signs, Inc - they have the same posters and are only $200/year! Wadaya say?
I just received this the other day. My lawyer handles my LLC registration, and the LLC I received this for was less than a year old. I really didn't look at it too closely and was about to send it over to my lawyer. I'm assuming he would have looked at it told me it was nothing and then charged me 150.00 bucks for 15 minutes of work. So, thanks consumerist, you just saved me money!
They do the same thing for Corps. My father was taken in by these sames scams for a long time, that when I was taking over the company he told me to make sure I pay for "Corporate Record" fees. They where $100 and I was a bit confused as I never heard of it. Turned out the companies where just taking our money to fill out a document for company minutes, something you NEVER file with the state.
After some google search I found some templates to make them and pretty much its just a rule on the books and very rarely enforced unless you have a larger company where minutes are important during board meetings.
In the larger pictures $100 seems not like much for a corp with all the fees and when you think that if you screw up and miss a real fees the penalty shoot up (I forget what its call, but its something for the Sec of State that is only $25 if you file on time but blows up to a few hundred if you miss it). So a company owners might think its better off paying some company then get blindsided by the state.
We get these solicitations all the time. It takes somewhere like 15 minutes to prepare the corporate or LLC annual reports and the filing charge is what it is. I guess that as long as they admit they're not a government agency, there isn't a lot of recourse. The funny thing is that there are some perfectly legitimate companies, Corporation Service Company comes to mind, that will handle corporate filings and when you have complex multi-state filings, they do a very good job and their prices are commensurate with the service.
In California (and probably every state), every letter you get from a real government agency should have the state seal on it.
I received this mailer, but mine had a "Division of Business Filings" seal that looked nothing like the state seal. Now it appears that this bogus company is actually using the seal fraudulently.
Scratch that. I didn't realize that the top scan was the "legit" document (with the real seal).
@OMG! SP00N: I get those all the time too. At home and at work. I bet where they make their real money is when they get the accounts payable department to pay them without checking with the IT department. One time I had our CFO ask me to triple-check that our domain was not registered with whatever shady registry before he was comfortable throwing it away...
We get these every year for our Corporation (CA).
From the same company - That address is a tall office building.
I was expecting it to be a mail drop, but since the people using their "service" aren't likely to get mad enough to show up and it is legal, they don't need to hide behind a mail drop.
these scumbags almost got over on me--it's very official looking when it shows up, and combined with how confusing CA makes corp and llc registration, it's easy to fall for!
For $5.54 you can send your letter out Certified with Return Receipt, which will give you physical proof that it was delivered.
So it's still $25.54 versus $250.00.
Though it may be legal, it stinks of rotten fish.
We just got one of these yesterday! THANK YOU!!!
Shady? Somewhat, but the company is claiming that they will hand deliver the form and get a certified copy that it was filed.
Considering government agencies where you can get your company suspended because some clerk didn't post your tax payment to the correct account, (see Rhode Island, where they have been hammering companies for sales taxes) it may be beneficial to get copies of the filings, just in case.....