By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
Business owners beware – a new mail scam is in circulation, and you could be the next target.
According to Secretary of State, A. Ralph Mollis, Rhode Island businesses have been receiving letters from “Rhode Island Corporate Compliance” (RICC) asking recipients to submit an “Annual Disclosure Statement” along with a “Document Fee” of $125. The letters cite a state law that requires corporations to keep records of accounts, minutes and shareholders and directs business owners to file with them for $125. The law is real; RICC is not.
“It’s very, very misleading,” Mollis told Gene Valicenti on the WPRO Morning News Thursday. He is concerned that people will send the money to this group and be under the false impression that they do not have to file an annual report with his office.
Failure to file an annual report with the Secretary of State’s office can result in fines and the revocation of a corporation's Certificate of Incorporation or Certificate of Authority in Rhode Island. Therefore, those that are swindled by the scheme may not only lose $125, but much, much more.
Mollis said more than 100 business owners have already called his office with questions about the letters; of those, at least one had already mailed a check to the RICC.
Mollis said the so-called Rhode Island Corporate Compliance entity not registered with the Secretary of State. He said they have linked RICC to a P.O. Box at a UPS store in Providence.
“We haven’t been able to get really any information on them,” he said.
Mollis urges anyone with questions about the RICC mailing to contact his office at 222-3040 or corporations@sos.ri.gov.
