Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
WWMN Interview: Michelle Reinen from DATCP with a New Scam Targeting Small Business Owners 7-7-24
you know, it's difficult to be a small business person and it really can get even more difficult, especially if you're getting notices from the government telling you that you owe money. Well, they're not always legitimate. And joining us on our Tri-County Contracting Hotline is Michelle Reinen, our consumer expert from DadCap. And you've been getting a lot of these complaints in the last couple of months, Michelle. Yeah, we've received several reports of male solicitations being sent to Wisconsin business owners, typically small business owners, that look like invoices or even tax documents and claim to require payment for things like labor posters, annual reports, articles of incorporation, and those other beneficial ownership documents and information. The amount that these solicitations request is often significantly higher than the real filing fees that you would have to pay in order to obtain the documents directly from the agency. So what do you do if you get one of these invoices that looks official and you're not sure if it's actually legitimate? Yeah, the first thing is to hit the pause button, check things out. Try to remember that business owners can get federal documents related to their business filings without fees, typically, and that all state documents can be acquired through the websites of their respective agencies or by contacting them. So that's the first step. Check it out with that appropriate agency to see if you even have to have a copy of that document. And if so, how do you obtain it directly from the agency, whether in response to this postcard or mailing that you've received? And what do you do if you have employees who are in charge of things like that? And they're the ones who are getting these invoices. What do you need to instruct them to do? Well, first, try and train. You know, have internal controls and verification processes for pain invoices that can prevent your business from falling victim to these scams. If you train the employees to review the invoices thoroughly before authorizing payment and look at those internal controls, then they'll note a question to any invoice that doesn't look familiar or that asks for more money than if you just do it yourself with the agency. And finally, if you're in doubt or if you think you've been scammed, who do we call? Please contact DadCaps Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-422-7128.