As some of you might have already known that I created a company for my commercial rental property. I had a company in the past, but this time it’s an LLC. I’m still new to the paper work of this type.
I’ve received a “bill” for $150 from U.S. Business Services last month.
The reason I said that I was a bill because it looked like a bill. Their logo looks like it’s from the US government logo, a legit one. I’ve been busy with other things in my life that I didn’t have time to “pay that bill”. So today, I actually set a goal to pay that bill.
After reading through the paper work the first time, I was ready to filled out the form that they had sent me, the the title is “Annual Meeting Minutes Statement“. I looked at the bill yesterday, and I thought why don’t I get on the government website and pay the bill online. After all the whole registration process was easy, and they accepted online payment and I had an account. But the government website said that I didn’t own anything.
Up until this point, I was not suspicious. I was a little bit disappointment that I couldn’t pay the bill online. LOL 🙂 You know, I’m a type A personality, so I don’t want to be late or doing snail mail.
Then this morning, when I read through the paper work once more time, trying to fill out the form. But something suspicious come up, the listed a couple laws that it’s my duty to report a meeting minutes of my company. But yesterday when I look, the government website indicated that if I make any changes to the ownership, I could do it right there. Humm… I saw the phone number, so I call them. This is the conversation:
Me: Hi! I’ve received this “Annual Meeting Minutes” Bill. Are you a government entity?
Rep: No.
Me: Oh, why are you billing me? This paperwork looks exactly like a bill from the government. And it’s very misleading.
Rep: We’re not misleading you. You could hire a lawyer, or pay us $150 to do this for you.
Me: But you make it look like you’re a government entity. This is illegal. I’d like to place a complaint.
Rep: …. (telling me more BS).
Me: (I hung up).
I looked them up on google. Lord… and Behold. They are scammers. There are multiples websites talking about them.
If you have an LLC, or a corporation, please be aware of this type of scam. Because you don’t need to file it. If you are not sure, you can call the government website yourself. Or file it straight from the government website.
Here are some of the websites that talk about the scams:
Misleading Compliance Solicitations | Scams | Corporate Resources
State Officials Warn of Business-Filing ‘Scam’ – Hartford Courant
BBB Warns of Business Compliance Scam – Better Business Bureau
Ripoff Report | U.S. Business Services Complaint Review Carlsbad …
Scams – dos.pa.gov
Small Business Scams | Federal Trade Commission
Business Compliance Solicitation Scams | The Office of Attorney …
Beware of Scam Targeting Small Businesses through Mailers and …
And more: here are the google search
https://www.google.com/search?q=us+business+serces+scam&oq=us+business+serces+scam&aqs=chrome..69i57.8455j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=us+business+services+scam
It is ridiculous that scammers use public records to scam innocent and honest people. I received several such notices soon after we bought our house and the paperwork for the mortgage was filed. All of these look official and some are stated in the form of a bill as if you owe money. Ridiculous.
I’m glad you caught on before paying!
I didn’t know it happened to you too. But you’re a lot faster than me to figured it out early. I was going to PAY them. That was bad. They need to be banned from running any kind of businesses.