New Business Owners, Don't Get Scammed!

When you start a new business, there are a lot of people that want your money.

You may have to pay state, county and even city taxes. You have to prepare for federal income taxes. Let's not forget your employees and vendors.

There's another group of people that would love to separate you from some of your hard earned dollars. They may skirt the edges of fraud, but I'll certainly call them scammers.

These are the folks that send solicitation for "services" that are disguised as government fees or domain registrar notifications.

Let's tackle the domain registrar issue real quick. If you have a website, then you should own your domain name. If you have a strong relationship with your web developer and he owns it for you, that might be okay, but make sure that either way, you know who the registrar is. (GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Active-Domain...)

Expiration Notice:
Scammers will check publicly available information, see that your domain expires soon, and try to trick you into switching to them at an unusually high price. If you get a domain expiration notice from someone other than your registrar, ignore it. If you get a notice from your registrar, have your web developer or webmaster verify the information.

Alternate Domain Names:
Some scam companies will send out letters with language that you can almost hear the frightened tone in the text, warning that your domain name is available in other endings. (We technicians call these "TLDs") Those TLDs are quite often obscure and foreign. So, you have to ask yourself, do you CARE if your domain is registered with ".asia" or ".kr" at the end? Unless you are trying to do business in areas covered by these TLDs, you probably don't. If you do, check with your current registrar or a trusted business coach to get the correct domain at the best price.

There's a variant of this with slight misspellings of you name. Registering those might be a good idea, but be sure to do it with your own trusted registrar.

Compliance Posters:
The U.S. Department of Labor and your own state government will require you to post certain information visible to your employees. You can print your own, or one of your vendors, perhaps your payroll company, might offer them for free as a bonus. You can find legitimate companies to purchase them from as well. Don't get suckered in by an official sounding letter that threatens fees or fines if you don't comply. Ask your business coach for more details.

Annual Meetings:
I know of this from a Florida specific viewpoint. Please confirm the details for your own state.

You may be required to have an annual meeting, but you don't have to pay to file it. You keep it for your records. You file an annual report each year between 1/1 and 4/30 to keep your business active. (Corporation or LLC). The cost, as of 2016, is $150.00 or $138.75. This is done at the state website, sunbiz.org.

The wording of these scams vary, but the theme is that they try VERY HARD to look like government documents. They offer you the "service" of preparing your Annual Meeting Notes. Don't be fooled. Be ever vigilant and ask your business consultant before you pay any fee that you don't recognize.

Certificate of Status:
Very similar to the annual meeting scam, there really is something called "Certificate of Status" and it costs about $5.00 or $8.00 at sunbiz.org. Companies will offer to obtain one for you at a cost of $60 or more. Quite the bargain! You may never need one anyway, but if you do, just visit sunbiz.org and get one there.

These companies stay in business because the skirt the law. They are right on the edge of trickery and fraud. If you read carefully, you may see their disclaimers.

One day soon, I'll write about those that don't care about the law and disclaimers. Those that will outright steal from you and disappear into the night.