Are these companies despicable? Yes. Are they misleading people? I'd say so. Can you make a fraud charge stick? Probably not. In cases I've seen, if you read the entire document, including fine print, and you think logically about the content, you can deduce that the companies sending these notices/invoices/wtfe are just hoping the target isn't savvy enough to figure things out.
Similar prohibitions exist in America. They’re typically handled at the state level, however, since incorporation is done by states.
(Some federal prohibitions exist, however. Like on calling oneself a “national bank.”)
At that point, set up in Latvia. Generally speaking, companies incorporated outside Delaware or the state they’re physically in get extra scrutiny. Also, if your only check before issuing payment is looking at the entity’s name, that’s more the problem than anything else.
they will probably solve this by curating a list of "good words to register your company" which then can be claimed as a tax exemption that requires two new forms. which adds $25 to services bill at H&Rblock. like God intended.
I wouldn't rely on weasel-wording to keep you out of jail. Even if those people aren't technically lying, it's obvious that they attempt to mislead people into paying for services they have never ordered.
"If your domain lapses and no one can get to your site, you could lose business or even lose the domain entirely. Renew your domain today for only $99.95!"
"If you don't submit your business to Google and drop off of search results, your business could suffer. Send us $100 and we'll handle submitting your site to Google for you."
Those statements are not technically wrong; these companies are soliciting to provide a service; obviously techies find the practice abhorrent and misleading, but they live in a muddy grey area where they provide some service and charge money for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Clearing_House#Gove...
That was one of many many things that made me leave.
> They look very legitimate...
The ones I've seen do not. And I stopped receiving them altogether a few years after I made my domain name registrations private.
I keep my registrations public, as they should be. But I stopped getting those letters when I changed the phone number to a VOIP service in another country.
They look very legitimate but are actual from other companies just sending you a bill for something that you don't owe.
I assume many smaller companies with untrained staff pay these items without double checking and that is why these things still come int he mail.
I find the "trademark renewal" ones especially devious as they come from a company called something like "US Trademark Renewal services" and the invoices look like they come from a federal agency.