- Hi everyone.
I'm Attorney Aiden Durham with 180 Law Co. in Colorado
and you're watching a very special bonus episode
of All Up In Yo' business.
(upbeat music)
On this episode of All Up In Yo' business,
we're gonna talk about "Business Identity Theft"
but first don't forget to like subscribe
and share and check the description
for links to additional information and resources.
Now this is a very special episode
of All Up In Yo' business
brought to you by my friends over at Company Alarm.
I'm gonna be honest with you guys
prior to learning about Company Alarm.
I really didn't even know
that Business Identity theft was a thing.
I mean, I knew that identity theft was a thing,
but it never occurred to me
that businesses could be at risk the same way people are.
But once I started to really think about it,
it makes a lot of sense.
It is shockingly easy for Business Identity theft to happen.
So what does Business Identity theft actually mean?
Business Identity theft is a crime
in which a cyber crime criminal
steals the business owner's assets
by silently transferring ownership
of their company to somebody else.
Business Identity theft happens
when criminals pretend to be owners
or officers of a business
these people will often file official documents
for a business in order to make it look like
they have some authority or agency,
then they'll open up credit lines
take out loans, drain bank accounts, all under the business.
And usually the actual business owner has absolutely no idea
that any of this has gone on until it's far, far too late.
Company Alarm was founded by Andy Pham,
who was actually himself a victim
of Business Identity theft.
Andy had a business registered in Nevada,
one day, a few years ago a complete random stranger
logged into the Nevada Secretary of State's
business filing website,
and within seconds removed Andy as the managing member
of his own company.
Andy had absolutely no idea about any of this,
and by the time he found out,
the person had already essentially converted the company
and all of its assets into his own
and had borrowed almost $2 million
against Andy's Landon property.
So you may be wondering how in the world
can something like this happen.
And unfortunately it's surprisingly easy.
You see most States, in most States,
you can just file business documents
with the Secretary of State with little or no oversight.
There's no person behind the scenes
of the Secretary of State's office
who's cross-checking documents
or really verifying the information
any forms or documents that we file.
We'll usually have to acknowledge
or certify that we are authorized to file the documents
on behalf of the business.
But I mean the Secretary of State
is just taking our word for it.
Nobody is actually checking to make
sure there's actually valid authorization.
And the business owners,
most of us aren't checking our businesses information
on a regular basis.
We're not reviewing our businesses filing history
the same way we might review our bank
or credit card statements
or monitoring it like we would with our credit reports.
It really just doesn't occur to most of us
that we could be vulnerable to this kind of risk.
But let me show you just how easy it is,
how easily I can add myself as an owner
to somebody else's business.
So in Colorado, if you're forming an LLC,
you have to include on the articles of organization,
the name and address of the person forming the LLC.
Then when you're opening a bank account for the LLC
for example, the bank will typically check the articles
of organization to make sure your name is on it somewhere,
but let's pull up some random LLC
that has been recently formed in Colorado.
Aah, here we go, perfect.
Apparent Randomness, LLC.
Sorry for calling you out.
Apparent Randomness love the name though.
Let's just go in here, huh, there you are.
We'll file a form, let's try good old amended
and restated articles of organization.
And now all I have to do is file a new articles
of organization with my name on it,
as the person forming the LLC pay the $25 filing fee.
And now I am now instantly the proud new owner
of this Apparently Random LLC.
Or you know what?
I don't really wanna steal their business altogether
but I do really like the name.
I just wanna steal the name and use it for my own LLC
so instead, why don't I just go ahead
and file a quick statement
of dissolution to dissolve this LLC
thus making the name available for me to use, score!
See how easy that was
within seconds I can make whatever kinds of changes
I want to, to this random person's business,
and he, or she probably has absolutely no idea.
Now, thankfully, Colorado has some security measures
in place to try to prevent
this type of thing from happening.
For example, you can subscribe to email notifications.
So you'll receive a notice
anytime a document is filed for your business.
There's also a rarely used option
to set up a secure business filing.
So you have to log in with a specific email address
and password before you can file anything.
If you have a Colorado business do these things immediately.
If you have a business in a different state
check with the secretary of state's office
to see if they offer any similar security measures.
Outside of that though, there's really no way
to prevent this from happening.
that is until now, enter Company Alarm
Company Alarm was created to stop this threat
of Business Identity theft.
They provide 24 seven monitoring
of the business information
that is registered with the state.
If any of that information changes
you'll receive an immediate text alert.
So you can jump into action and prevent any further damage
but it's not just random strangers
that we have to be concerned about.
Sometimes the Business Identity thief
is much closer than you may realize.
Let's say you have a business partner,
the two of you work tirelessly for months,
maybe years to start your business.
You've been getting along great
and everything is fine, until suddenly it isn't
you get in some kind of fight or argument and you
or you can't agree on which direction to take the business.
Maybe you'll work it out
and come to some kind of compromise or maybe you dont.
and instead of continuing to argue about it,
your business partner just files a couple of documents
to remove your name
from the business registration altogether.
Yep, that happens too..
It's not just these random
cyber criminals that we need to worry about.
That's why a service like Company Alarm is so important,
as entrepreneurs we have a lot of stuff going on
and we usually have multiple things
on our plate at any given moment,
the last thing we need to worry about
is someone just stealing our business
right out from under us.
So what I want you all to do
is head over to companyalarm.com
and sign up for a free 30 day trial.
So you can start protecting your business
from identity theft.
That's all for this episode folks,
drop a comment below, let me know what you think.
And don't forget to check the description
for additional information and resources.
Thank you all so much for watching
I'm Aiden Durham, and I'll see you next time.
(slow music)