After passing the FL Home Inspector Exam I applied certified my business as an LLC. Just a couple of days after, I received three different letters claiming I need to pay for a Status Certificate, EIN and some Labor Law Poster totaling over $400.
Let new Home Inspector know about this scam letters after getting your LLC.
Why do you think these are a scam?
Welcome to business ownership in the State of Florida.
This isn’t a Florida thing… it’s a “being in business” thing!
I’ve received this type of “junk mail” for decades while in business in various States, and have no expectations of it ending, ever!!
To register for an LLC in FL you use Sunbiz.com, you pay to form your LLC and there is an option to get a certification for$35, Status $5 both you get from Sunbiz webpage, The EIN or tax ID number you get from the IRS and cost nothing.
Two if the letters had a disclaimer in small print that they are not a government organization, the third one did not, it turns out it is an LLC that just got stablished in August of 2023, and its registered agents are multiple LLCs.
That is why I am taking the big leap and saying this are scams, and you are right, just a couple of minutes in the Google machine will show you this type of scams are being run all over.
In general… Business Legal forms, Postings, Documents are a requirement of being an operating Business. The items required vary by State and Federal Govt’s.
As for the method of gaining such items…
Is HR Block, TurboTax, or the many other tax software companies a SCAM?
You can file your taxes directly through the IRS for FREE…
or…
You can pay hundreds of dollars for Tax Software to assist you…
or…
Thousands of dollars to have a Tax Preparer or Accountantant do your taxes for you.
This is no different from what you posted, but yes, you need to vett the offers you receive as many are “scammish” in their wording.
It sure seems like the State could shut these things down. The website address would be .com or .gov if it was legit. Yes always go to Sunbiz.com, hope this post helps someone from getting scammed.
We’d get this stuff at my old hardware store all the time. Most can be lumped into the scam category based on the sales pitches. These companies pretend they are some official state agency, and that the police will come after you unless you immediately order their poster.
The worst were the ones who went door to door and would start threatening the front cashier if they didn’t show them the posters (which I got free every year from our payroll company). But at least there you had the pleasure of reaming them out.
I caught one doing this hard fake official pitch with a poor high school kid working the summer. After the wannabe mall cop began threatening to report me to the state labor commission I told him he had about 5 seconds to produce his county peddlers license before I called the police. I followed him out into the parking lot accusing him of impersonating an agent of the state, and hearing chuckles from customers.
