Beware of the EU Business Register Scam !

Home / Personal Stories

Beware of the EU Business Register Scam !
Read on Medium

I created my business a few months ago, so my personal details got shared over the internet (I don’t know why it works that way in France/EU). With that said, you’ll receive a lot of e-mails, or even letters to register for some type of business lists, so to get more visibility as they say.

One of the most common one is the EU Business Register which I received by e-mail. You can find a copy of the e-mail below.

Hello,
In order to have your company inserted in the EU Business Register for 2021/2022, please print, complete and submit the attached form in a reply to this email.
EU BUSINESS REGISTER
3700 AA ZEIST
THE NETHERLANDS
Fax: +31 205 248 107
All electronic file formats are accepted.
Updating is free of charge.

Registration form attached to the email. It looks like a regular official form
Registration form attached to the email

Here is the document attached to the e-mail

In attachments, you’ll have a PDF which looks like a normal application form. In fact, as a beginner who just launched it’s business, I wanted to get more visibility (who doesn’t ?). So I started to print out the document. But a full reading of the document saved me €995. I was almost scammed.

Footnotes of the attached form (what we usually don't read but that we should)
I WILL HAVE AN INSERTION INTO ITS DATABASE FOR THREE YEARS. THE PRICE PER YEAR IS EURO 995. THE SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY EXTENDED EVERY YEAR FOR ANOTHER YEAR, UNLESS SPECIFIC WRITTEN NOTICE IS RECEIVED BY THE SERVICE PROVIDER OR THE SUBSCRIBER TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION

To make it short, next time, pay more attention to e-mails and documents wanting you to sign a contract, read carefully the full document, or run a quick search about the company online. You’ll save time, and money ????

For those who got scammed

Don’t worry, we got you covered. The best thing you can do is ignoring emails, invoices, and threats. Yes, they may threat you with legal action, but they won’t (they are scammers after all, not lawyers).

Posted in Personal Stories by Alexis
Write a comment