Scammers go after Northwest Florida business owners

PANAMA CITY — Mike Wallace got what looked like a government document in the mail. It offered a service to complete annual minute requirements for companies.

In reality, that form is a scam spanning several states.

“When I first looked at it, it looked like it was from the state,” Wallace said.

Compliance Services, headquartered in California, sent out mass mailings earlier this month, claiming the company will prepare documents to satisfy the annual minutes requirement for corporations. The scam is similar to several others, Better Business Bureau of Northwest Florida (BBB) spokeswoman Karen Szulczewski said.

“They are basically trying to use scare tactics to get businesses to pay an unnecessary fee,” Szulczewski said.

BBB issued a warning last week that the misleading mailings are showing up in business mailboxes across Northwest Florida. Compliance Services has an “F” rating from the BBB, the lowest rating available. The company has at least 19 complaints against it, Szulczewski said. Tracking local complaints is difficult because complaints go to California, but several Northwest Florida businesses have called to ask about the form and company, Szulczewski said.

While companies must submit minutes to the state, those minutes do not need to be filed by an outside company and do not require a fee. North Carolina and Texas have both filed temporary restraining orders against the company and its principal officer, Selwyn Monarch. The Florida attorney general has gone after scams like this in the past, Szulczewski said.

Szulczewski said she did not know of any local victims of the scam as of Tuesday afternoon. Any business that is a victim of this scam should call the state attorney general’s fraud hotline at 866-966-7226.

Wallace, who owns Wallace Consulting Group in Panama City Beach, said he worried other business owners might be fooled into paying the fee.

“I am an ex-auditor,” Wallace said. “While I identified this for what it is, I fear that many other business owners may be fooled.”