Scam Letters Demanding Money Target New Business Owners
We live in a world where some bad actors and scammers try to target people and enrich themselves. Sometimes these actions are clearly fraudulent, sometimes they come up with clever ways to avoid criminal consequences. Recently, I have experiences such scammers myself when I applied for a new business license. I did the proper research and used credible services to start a new business. That's why I was surprised to receive letter from various places demanding to pay them some fees.
A little bit more of research showed that these are ongoing scam letters that target new business owners. Since they have been doing this for a while, my understanding is they have covered all the legal aspects of their actions and still operate freely. It is still frustrating to see such actors and such behavior allowed to exist when in my opinion this constitutes fraud. I will share couple of letters that I have received, and you can see how intimidating this may seem to a new business owner that wants to make sure to have a good start.
Just by looking at the language of the letter and the naming of the entity the letter is from may suggest for a new business owner that this is a legitimate letter from the government and those instructions must be followed. Of course not all would fall for this scam. But even if they get payments from some of the letters they have sent to, it would be some decent money stolen for nothing.
Simply google the entity that is sending this letter, and you will see clear evidence that this is a scam. However, government somehow can't do anything about it and they continue scamming.
Another similar scam letter I have received was less clever, but also use similar intimidating language as if it was from a legitimate government branch demanding some payment.
Scammers! Right? What to do? I would suggest to be skeptical and questions anything and everything that asks for money. This may be frustrating and annoying, but this is the world we live in where bad actors and scammers constantly try to steal people's money.
These entities have set themselves up as some legitimate businesses that are trying to sell some services. This is what their defense would be if their actions are challenged. But it is clear their tactics are not of an honorable business behavior, but rather scamming new businesses who may not have all the knowledge necessary in an already confusing bureaucratic systems.
I can only hope karma will get these scammers and new business owners do proper research to avoid them. Have you been scammed? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
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The (fake) letter look legitimate. I won't be surprised if some people fell for the scam.
Yes, some probably do fall for it. That’s why they continue doing this.
I don't think the above letters are "fake" or "scams", they're just using scare tactics that take advantage of new business owners who don't know the laws. What they are stating in the letters is likely accurate information, but they're charging a ridiculous fee for something you can create yourself or buy for much less.
However, for most small businesses with 0-x employees, these signs are not even required by the State.
That makes me wonder wouldn't these people have better success if they just sent letters with genuine offers with reasonable prices with these products that may help new small business?
That market is likely already full of successful legit businesses charging a reasonable fee and that's why these biz exist ... to get the outliers and make a huge profit making up for the minimum action.
You'll get domain renewals (among other things, but this is the most prevalent I've seen mailed) that aren't from your registrar as well, with language indicating your domain is about to expire. The price is usually astronomically high on these, and like yours above they are legally "scamming" your company to give them money.
But the worst type of scam you'll (hopefully never) ever see is when someone social engineers information from an employee or dumpster dives your location and locates some of your suppliers. They will then start mailing/faxing/emailing invoices under your suppliers name or start calling pretending to be your supplier and asking for the money to be sent to their bank account, usually it's some emergency (an order will not ship on time, your account will be closed, etc).
If it's emailed, the link to pay is likely a phishing attack as well. It's not always a bill, it can be sent as a simple correspondence from what appears to be a company or someone you do business with, just to get an employee or you to click the link.
It gets to be a real headache and if you're not paying the bills yourself, make sure whoever you have handling accounts payable is up to speed on these scams or they could end up paying the scammers or clicking the link thinking they're saving the day when they've just f'd you good.
Email phishing attacks are the biggest pain in the ass these days. Creating a whitelist on your email server is a good idea, you just have to occasionally weed through all the rejected email to see if something legit got caught (time consuming and can still burn you) or just wait to see if someone legit asks if you received their email or not (much easier and you can always add them to your whitelist).
These are some good suggestions to keep in mind and be careful about. You are right there much worse scams going on all the time. I guess dealing with scammers is a cost of doing business these days.
Sadly, some will fall for it.
One of the ones we get from time time to time are from "registration services" for trademark renewals. Because we have a registered trademark/service mark we get these... most of the time, we can tell that they come from somewhere in (usually eastern) Europe because they are on A4 paper instead of 8 1/2 x 11 and are denominated in Euro...
=^..^=
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That is really lame and sad. I would not be shocked if a lot of new business just pay it.
Between this nonsense and the people who randomly sue small companies hoping for a settlement since it’s cheaper for the business than trying to dismiss it in court.
Have you tried contacting your local post office regarding the mail fraud? I’ve never dealt with postal inspectors. There are however supposed to be people who do nothing but investigate crimes occurred though the mail.
I haven't contacted anybody. It does seem like they know what they are doing and operating within the law. But their tactics seem unethical and scam like.
That looks like a very elaborate scheme! Good thing you were smarter than most and didn't fall for that
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Good info
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