My business received an official-looking letter in the mail today, requesting me to fill out the enclosed form so that my annual report could be filed with the Secretary of State's office in Colorado. All sorts of legal-sounding language was included, threatening dissolution of the company and other consequences for non-compliance or late compliance. The letter stated that $225 was the cost of filing the annual report.
I put it aside, intending to contact the Secretary of State's office to ask why the annual report fee had gone up from $10 when filed online to $225. Upon looking at the letter again, I saw that the $225 fee was not to be made out to the Colorado Secretary of State, nor mailed to a recognizable government office in Colorado.
In very small print at the bottom of the letter, it stated that this was a solicitation, and noted that "you are under no obligation to make any payments [in response to] this offer.
Someone could easily be tricked into sending this company money without realizing that they are charging $215 for a service offered almost free by the State of Colorado, and that they are not affiliated with the state in any way except that they claim to have registered themselves as an agent of the Secretary of State.
I then looked them up online and the search returned several pages of "self-published" articles and web pages, all written by Faith Cohen on behalf of this company, stating how many wonderful things they can do for you company if only you will give them $225.
Small businesses in Colorado beware!
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