Scriptionary Blog

Am I the only one who thinks that the following is absolutely insane and redundant?

From Sunbiz.org

Effective July 1, 2009, the intention to register a fictitious name must be advertised at least once in a newspaper in the county in which the principal place of business will be located. Contact your newspaper for advertising information.

Apparently, in California business owners already had to do this but it’s new in Florida. How would one go about advertising the intent?

People of Palm Beach County, ScammingBastards Inc will henceforth use the name TrustUs Inc to scam you instead.

…

Here’s a little tip for Florida Business owners, but maybe restricted to S-Corp owners. If you get a document in the mail called: “Annual Minutes Requirement Statement Directors and Shareholders”, do not pay it, this is a scam. The Florida Department of State has now posted a warning about this on its front-page as well.

While this document might look very authentic, in the small print it states:

This product has not been approved or endorsed by any government agency and this offer is not being made by an agency of the government.

Needless to say, you should never send shareholder information to any non-government organization. And your actual annual meeting information should only be addressed to a government organization or posted at SunBiz.org.

The letter that I originally received had the following return address:

COMPLIANCE SERVICES
400 Capital Cir SE, Ste 18321
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Edit:
Thanks to all of the people who have posted a comment, here’s a list of all the street address instances used by this scammer so far, there were more instances reported below in the comment section without addresses. Also, if you happen to have more information or an address that’s not listed, please post it below, it will most certainly help many people.

• California
  P.O. Box 1265
  Studio City, CA 91614-0265
• Florida
  400 Capital Cir SE, Ste 18321
  Tallahassee, FL 32301
• Georgia (1)
  931 Monroe Drive NE, STE A-102 #333
  Atlanta, GA 30308-1795
• Georgia (2)
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services/Business Processing Division
  5805 State Bridge Road
  Duluth GA 30094
  Phone 866-390-1176
• Georgia (3)
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services
  5805 State Bridge Road Ste. G–380
  Duluth, GA 30097
• Massachusetts
  Compliance Services
  71 Commercial St. #241
  Boston, MA 02109
• New York
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services / Business Processing Division
  911 Central Avenue #134
  Albany, NY 12206
• North Carolina
  324 S. Wilmington St.
  Postal Mail Box 407
  Raleigh, NC 27601