I got an official-looking notice in the mail yesterday from the “Annual Review Board” of California, asking me to send them my LLC Statement of Information along with a $228 processing fee.  There was a very tight deadline for sending it in, with a steep penalty for being late.

I was thinking I better put this on my to-do list for Monday, but then noticed some fishy elements to their letter:

  • A Los Angeles address at the bottom, instead of Sacramento
  • A 213 phone number, instead of 916 of 1-800
  • A request to make check payable to “Annual Review Board” instead of the Secretary of State or Franchise Tax Board.
  • A section in bold stating this “service has not been approved or endorsed by any Government Agency.”

At that point I did what I imagine anyone would do these days.  I googled “Annual Review Board Scam?” and found out that indeed this was a scam letter. Oh the power of the Internet.  If the Annual Review Board wants more people to send them their money, they need to work on better SEO and bump all of the websites denouncing their service off the first page of search results.

For full disclosure, filing a Statement of Information is a requirement every two years.  But you can file directly with the Secretary of State for free, rather than paying this shady outfit $228 to do it for you.

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