Warning: Company registration scam

sgthammer

I registered a Limited Company, which turned out to be the wrong vehicle for me at the moment, but that's another story. It can always be repurposed later, so no harm done.

But I was startled, a few days after paying my £50 to Companies House, to receive this in the post:

I'm not normally gullible, but it took me aback because in this instance I couldn't be 100% certain I hadn't missed something in the process. That's how they getcha... 

Fortunately I double checked, and sure enough, it's a scam. There's even a page about it on gov.uk if you dig deep enough:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/reporting-scams-pretending-to-be-from-companies-house

The website diverts to a different address with an unbranded data collection/payment portal.

The return address on the envelope is PO Box 387, Barnstaple EX32 2HA. Watch out for this. 

Delivered separately in the same post with the same return address, I also got a letter purportedly inviting me to open an account with ANNA, a Welsh small business bank. This was more convincingly branded, but didn't convey the same sense of urgency.

Obviously whoever is behind this has a system set up (whether manual or automated) to scrape new registration info from CH and send stuff out to business owners who don't know the ropes yet.

Don't be fooled!!

MyRealNameToo

Companies house data is public record, for free you can get a monthly CSV of all registered companies or for £4.70 a month have an XML feed to query the db live, like pulling the basic details of every company registered yesterday. 

Unfortunately it does somewhat leave you and shareholders open to fraud but it's effectively the price agreed to be paid to allow shareholders to limit their liability if the firm fails. 

sgthammer

I wasn't suggesting the system had to be complicated or expensive. I just thought I'd call attention to a hazard.

You sound like you think fraud is okay though.

GrahamLM52

Beware of the Domain Name Registration scam, too. One year after registering my company's domain name (web address) I was emailed by the "Domain Name Registration of America" who told me that they managed the international register of domain names and that my one-year registration was about to expire which would make my domain name "illegal" and did I want to renew it? Its a scam.