LIMA — The Better Business Bureau is alerting the public about a new fraud scam hitting the area.
This scam centers around an email claiming to be from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a real agency that investigates financial fraud. In the email, fraudsters masquerade as the “U.S. Business Compliance Commission” and claim to require the recipient to file a Beneficial Ownership Information report to avoid financial penalties. The email includes a false telephone number and website link, with the link ending in “.net” rather than the “.gov” used by official U.S. government agency websites.
The email will also call for a cash payment, with some reporting the payment to be $117, according to the BBB. The recipient is threatened with a $500 per day fine if non-compliant, with a maximum fine of $10,000.
In reality, there is no fee to file a BOI report with the U.S. Treasury, and the network never sends correspondence requesting payments.
Anyone receiving these fake emails can report them to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint.
