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Maine issues solicitation alert to corporations

Business owners should always be on alert for potential illegitimate correspondence and fraudulent offers. Recently, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap issued a warning to corporations and non-profit entities after numerous Maine corporations received solicitations from a company called Corporate Records Service.

The company has been sending out unsolicited mailings that contain a form offering to prepare annual corporate records documents for companies. The form is titled "2014-Annual Records Solicitation Form." The company responsible for sending out these forms offers to prepare documents on behalf of a business for $125. 

Sometimes mailings are intentionally misleading to be representative of official government correspondence. Although this corporate records form appears to be official, it is not. The Maine government announced that these forms are not being sent on behalf of the Secretary of State nor are they required to be filed.

The solicitation does state it is not a government document, however, since it appears to be official this could be misleading and trick businesses into sending in their forms and paying for a service that is not necessary or even required by the government. This isn't the first time this scam has happened in Maine, as the Bangor Daily News reported that Corporate Records Service did the same thing last year.

Anytime a solicitation arrives in the mail, business owners must be vigilant and thoroughly inspect documents to make sure they are official and required. If not, your business could become the victim of a scam. If you are interested in incorporating your business and protecting yourself from fraudulent offers, consider reaching out to a trusted incorporation services company that knows which official documents you need to file and which are not required.