- Crooks who pretend to be government and steal your money -

We recently received a solicitation letter from a company that supposedly provides some kind of Annual Minutes Disclosure compliance (annually required by your state government) on your company's behalf. (Click here to see the letter.) It even comes with an instruction letter on how to fill out the form properly and submit your payment. (Click here to see the scam instruction.) But what disturbed us really is the fact that the solicitation letter is intentionally presented in such a way that it looks almost like an official state government letter "demand" for a compliance fee.  It even has some kind of authentic seal on the upper left hand corner of the letter designed to fool the innocent business owner.

We then verified the legitimacy of this bill by calling the 866 toll free number provided. Sure enough, the lady on the other end "unwillingly" spilled out the fact that this is a soliciting service not a bill. Afterward, we looked closely again at the letter, and finally saw a fine print statement at the bottom of the letter saying this is a solicitation. The statement is deliberately located at the very bottom where it can be missed very easily if you don't pay attention.

So be careful the next time you receive a government letter demanding for any sort of compliance fee. It may very well just be a scam. Do protect yourself.