Looking through my mail today, I saw an official-looking envelope and opened it.
It was a threatening letter / invoice combination with an amount due of $225 to renew my LLC registration.
I freaked out at the amount, because it used to only be $10 to renew!
I re-read the notice again, and noticed at the bottom of the page some disclaimer language that “this is not an official invoice, and no payment is due” in tiny print.
Now suspicious, I searched Bing for the name of the company and found lots of complaints on message boards like RipOffReport about these fake invoices.
This company basically scrapes the Secretary of State business database from each state and then mails these fake invoices out to everyone on the list.
I’m sure a large percentage of businesses actually pay these, making huge profits for these scammers.
The lesson here is to take your time, carefully read every invoice, validate the charges, and do your research. I just saved myself $215 by investigating these idiots.