Gov’t Scams

We all joke about how the gov’t is always ripping off good hard-working people. Well, this is one time that they are definitely in the clear.

High Aspirations received a letter in a semi official looking envelope from “New York Corporate Compliance.” Upon opening the letter, I see that it’s a form, again with that pretty official looking logo stating that it is a “Disclosure Statement” and that we need to fill it out and mail it back with a check of $125.00. What? That sounds kind of steep since the Annual Report to the New York Department of State is usually $9. Talk about a rate increase! There is a phone number on the form but since it was very late at night I figured I’d call to see what the recording would say, after all there is no government agency open that late. Well color me surprised when a live person answered on the first ring! At that point, I knew that this had nothing to do with any NY agency whatsoever. I actually started reading the fine print and realized that had I looked closer the first time around I would have seen that these people actually state right on the form that they are not affiliated with any government agency – so why make yourself look like you are? Because of the hundreds or thousands of people who would probably just pay it without question, slick, but not the way I’d want to do business!

HAI’s letter from the so-called New York Corporate Compliance.

The second scam we have recently received was an email from the IRS stating that we were due a refund. It actually made me look twice. It matched the look and feel of the true IRS web site and had no spelling errors – that I noticed at least, usually a very good indication of a fake. What proved to me that it was fake was two things:

1. The url in the email which sent me to a page that again looked like a page from the IRS site, went to some unknown domain.
2. The page it took me to asked for my credit card number. If you have ever checked your refund status at the IRS web site, you know that you do not need a credit card number, simply a social security number, and refund amount. If you’re not sure about the link you clicked on, go directly to the IRS web site by typing in http://www.irs.gov/ and you can take it from there.

As you can see, these guys are getting very good at their jobs which means you need to be even more careful than in the past. If you’re not sure about something you received, call your accountant or do a search online. More often than not, you’re not the first person to have received that letter, email, etc.