The Illinois Secretary of State has the following warning on its website about a company that is scamming businesses out of $150:
WARNING! A fraudulent company called "Illinois Corporate Compliance" is contacting Illinois businesses with a deceitful solicitation to collect a $150 fee to file corporate meeting minutes. This solicitation is an illegal scam - do not respond to it.It's a good idea to make sure your corporation has prepared it annual meeting minutes, but the only place the minutes need to be filed are in your minute book!
Another company runs a similar scam by contacting trademark and patent holders with a deceitful solicitation regarding monitoring services. The notice looks very official and infers that the monitoring services are somehow affiliated with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Here's what the USPTO says:
You may receive unsolicited communications from companies requesting fees for trademark related services, such as monitoring and document filing. Although solicitations from these companies frequently display customer-specific information, including USPTO serial number or registration number and owner name, companies who offer these services are not affiliated or associated with the USPTO or any other federal agency. The USPTO does not provide trademark monitoring or any similar services.Be wary of any correspondence that looks like its from a government agency, but asks for a payment to a private company. When in doubt, do a quick search on the Internet for more information.
