Business Identity Theft

Business Identity Theft:

Withthin the last couple of months, two of our clients have had their business information on Sunbiz (www.SUNBIZ.org) changed by unknown persons. It could be nefarious, it could be a matter of someone making a typo and copying/pasting document numbers.

One gentleman had a person added to his AC company as Vice President. He has no idea who that person is. For this to occur, someone had to file an Amendment and pay a fee to add an officer; this is very alarming and indicates that someone may try to apply for credit or loans in his business name.

The other person’s company information changed through a very loose feature on the SunBiz Website; all a person has to do is copy/paste the document number of the business in to the “Manage/Change My Information” section of the SunBiz website and they can change the address, email address for Annual Report Notifications, addresses and EIN, but they cannot change or add officers through that feature.

Please check your LLC or Corporation filing with the Florida Division of Corporations on a regular basis to make sure no one is changing your business information.

If officer/directors/members have changed, you should make a police report and contact your attorney to have a “Statement of Fact” drawn up and submitted with correcting documents. My advice is to hire an attorney for this. The attorney will hopefully also notify the IRS and any other regulatory agencies and financial institutions that you may be the victim of Business Identity Theft. I strongly advise against doing this on your own. By hiring an attorney, they can keep track and will have memorialized your entire case, just in case the authorities have to open an investigation and you have to appear in court.

Here is a link to the Business Identity Theft section of the Florida Secretary of State: https://dos.fl.gov/…/courses-of-action-for-victims-of…/

Be Safe Out There!

Robin