I recently registered an UG in Berlin. I was warned that I might receive scam letters in the mail after my company was added to the registry and it finally happened. [I got an official looking letter](https://imgur.com/a/jKowFjw) dated the same date as my company was added to the register, demanding that I pay 738 euros within 3 days or else face increasing compounding fines. While the letter says it’s from a judge in Berlin, it says it’s coming from a central payment center in Munich, and the IBAN they are demanding I send money to is based in Lithuania.
After an initial panic, I realized it was a scam given these inconstancies and threat of urgent action required before the fine gets worse.
I realize it’s probably futile, but somebody had to make the effort to find newly registered companies, then send these bogus threatening letters to the people who opened those companies. The people responsible have to be in some way connected to the entity with access to the bank account in Lithuania, which is in the EU.
I’d be happy if – at the very least – my complaint is included as a data point if a case is ever built against the people connected to the bank account.
To whom should I report this to and how?
1 comment
You can take that letter and go to the police with it. Tell them you assume fraud here and want to report the fraud, or figure out what to do now. Generally, they will tell you what to do and how to continue from there.
Most scammers like this take real letters and switch out stuff to make it look real. They hope people are so overwhelmed with starting a new business that they don’t notice, or get so scared by the threat of additional fees and that it’s from a judge that they just pay. But official documents never just give you 3 days, and if this is fraud, then they just send these letters out by the dozen. Even if they catch just a few who pay, that’s still a ton of money with little to no effort.
So go to the police, report the issue as fraud, tell them everything you found out and they will tell you how to go from there.