Recently formed limited companies have been receiving bogus notices that they have to pay a further fee to complete their new company registration.
The fraudster’s notices and website are extremely convincing, warns Norman Younger, director of leading UK company formation agents Formations Direct. In fact, he adds, they’re so generous that they’ll even inform you when a filing deadline looms, or so they claim.
How many people realise that Companies House will do this for you at no cost? “It’s only because I know the rules inside out that I was very quickly 100% satisfied it was not genuine,” says Younger, “but the average person is very likely going to fall for it.”
Where this scam fell down was many people use a professional agent to arrange their company formation, so their first port of call was somewhere other than the crooks.
The early stages of a new business are quite a good time to strike, as entrepreneurs are in a rush to get things going as quickly as they can
The fraud came to light when customers of Formations Direct rang in to ask why their company formations were incomplete if they had been paid for and the certificates of incorporation had been despatched by the formation agent. Subsequent enquiries revealed that other formation agents were receiving irate calls and were similarly puzzled.
“The early stages of a new business are quite a good time to strike,” says Younger, “as entrepreneurs are in a rush to get things going as quickly as they can.” Anything that looks like an impediment to the commencement of trading will be addressed at once without necessarily questioning what it is.
Convincing
In any event, with the proliferation of red tape and government departments with nebulous, new-age monikers it’s not too difficult to think up a convincing name. How about the Business Compliance Agency or Entrepreneurs Support and Reform Agency?
Do they actually exist? Only in the imagination, but compare these with certain real-life agencies and departments and you’ll see how convincing they are.
