{"id":99606,"date":"2020-08-15T13:10:48","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T18:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=99606"},"modified":"2020-08-15T13:11:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T18:11:36","slug":"lawsuit-filed-against-company-accused-in-ongoing-business-scam-in-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/lawsuit-filed-against-company-accused-in-ongoing-business-scam-in-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Filed Against Company Accused In Ongoing Business Scam in Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After investigating data and concerns brought forth, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office<\/strong> (AG) has filed a lawsuit against Centurion Filing Services, LLC<\/strong>, for alleged deceptive solicitations targeting new Mississippi businesses. This action follows countless complaints to the AG’s Business Services Division<\/a> and a cease-and-desist letter from the AG’s Office, to which the company has not responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This scam has affected more than 2,700 of our small businesses,” said Secretary of State<\/strong> Michael Watson<\/strong>. “The COVID-19 pandemic continues to hinder our business community, and no Mississippian should face the additional nightmare of becoming a victim of fraud.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m proud of my team for working diligently to gather the facts in this case, and I’m thankful for the Attorney General’s partnership in bringing justice those who have been impacted.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AG’s office first received reports about Centurion Filing Services, LLC, in February<\/a>. According to customers, the company, which operates under the fictitious name, MS Certificate Service<\/strong>, targets new businesses by sending a misleading \u201c2020 Certificate of Existence Request Form\u201d through the mail (see image below). The misleading document encourages business owners to pay a $90.50 fee to receive a Mississippi Certificate of Existence<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of today, the scammers have profited between $170,000 and $260,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mississippi businesses can receive a Certificate of Good Standing<\/strong> from the Secretary of State’s website, sos.ms.gov<\/a>. Online processing costs $25 and the certificate is available immediately after purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses may report deceptive or misleading solicitations such as these to our Business Services Division<\/a> at (601) 359-1633, or the Attorney General\u2019s Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-281-4418 or consumer@ago.ms.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After investigating data and concerns brought forth, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office (AG) has filed a lawsuit against<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":99609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,19],"tags":[16899,16905,16900,16901,16906,16904,16903,16902],"class_list":["post-99606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-business","category-local-news","tag-centurion-filing-services","tag-certificate-of-good-standing","tag-llc","tag-michael-watson","tag-mississippi-attorney-general","tag-mississippi-certificate-of-existence","tag-ms-certificate-service","tag-secretary-of-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/MSCertificateFraud.png?fit=627%2C811&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}