Close Menu
    Forming my UG and getting scam and spam mails
    Germany

    Forming my UG and getting scam and spam mails


    I recently opened a UG for my business. I am awaiting some document about my handelsregister number. I got a scammy mail for paying 2000 euros. Initially I was shocked, but thinking rationally, I realised that the iban is in Spain which is impossible for German court. Then I realised it’s a scam mail.

    My question is, what should I do now to report it ? Police ? Consumer court ?

    2nd, what else should I watch out for in future based on your experience forming a company ?

    Thanks

    https://i.redd.it/muon4zmpsl8g1.jpeg

    Posted by ImpressiveParsley335

    View 11 Comments

    11 Comments

    2. LennyPlay on

      Just Report it online to the Police (online Anzeige). Prepare to get more. A lot more of them.

    3. serafno on

      Open a „Onlineanzeige“ for fraud and inform the „Amtsgericht“ that apparently based on your registration someone is sending out scam letters which seems to be based on internal information. I don’t think dsgvo is applicable here because it‘s business data.

      If you google the „judges“ name there are warnings published by the Handwerkskammer to inform about this fraud.

    6. Fabius_Macer on

      I can only say that this kind of scam is nothing new and going on for decades. Also watch out for offers (that are disguised as invoices) for entries in useless phonebooks, for Chinese internet domains or entires in “trademark registers”.

    7. Omronql on

      Take a photo and Ask an LLM If the Letter is legit IT should be by the Justizkasse or Something similar.

    8. Plane_Substance8720 on

      Fraudulent letters and mails for new businesses have become a serious issue. First thing to check is the IBAN. Anything without a german IBAN can be ignored safely.

    9. de_Duv on

      Great!

      The sender is the “Central Payment Office” in Frankfurt am Main in the federal state of Hesse, the signatory is allegedly a judge at the Mannheim District Court in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, and the letter bears the coat of arms of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia…

      … um, sorry: Of course, report it to the police and remain just as vigilant in the future as you are now. 😉

    10. -runs-with-scissors- on

      This is really interesting. I had to deal with this kind of shit a few years ago. I didn‘t think that it is still around.

      At that time one guy had built a software to scrape the data off the Bundesanzeiger website and send out thousands of letters. 

      The letters were so many that they had ro bring them to the sorting facility presorted.

      This lead to thousands of criminal investigations and it was difficult for the prosecutors to find the pattern at first, because the cases were spread out all over Germany and the victims reported the cases at their local police stations (where else?), usually when they got their second – genuine – invoice.

      At that time the IBANs were from Cyprus and Bulgaria. The problem for the perpetrators was to keep the accounts open. At that time learned that bank-internal security systems trigger when two (2) transaction disputes happen in a short time. 

      I do recommend to find out the bank (using the IBAN) and report the attempted fraud directly to the bank as well as go to the police. With the first action you can effectively stifle that scheme – if someone else has the same idea – and save others. 

      In my case the perpetrators – in their search of open IBANs eventually came in contact with the Bulgarian mafia and they basically just betrayed them as well, keeping all of the money. 

      After a while the investigators closed in on the criminals and raided the shop. Once unraveled there were many witnesses. One at the German Post sorting facility, one who had sold the letter folding and enveloping machine. One witness was from a printing company. I believe they sent out 250000 letters.

    11. Enough-Can-9162 on

      It’s such a well-known scam that my notary, who handled the UG registration for me, actually warned me that this letter would definitely arrive at least twice. And then even when the registration authority sends you the real letter, they include an extra note saying that you will definitely receive a fraudulent letter, so please pay attention to the IBAN and make sure it’s not non-German. Basically, everyone is aware of this type of scam, but it seems like no one is really doing anything about it other than warning new company founders not to respond to it.